


For Whom His Hearts Beat

by GroovyKat



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Dimension Cannon, F/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-17 17:01:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 39,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5878624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GroovyKat/pseuds/GroovyKat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dimension hopping Rose Tyler walks into the biggest library in the universe, straight into the muzzle of River Song's gun...<br/>A Happy Birthday fic for Rukiara!<br/>A one-post-per-day challenge until this is finished. Therefore will be updated daily till it's done!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Materialisation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rukiara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rukiara/gifts).



> Happy birthday to Rukiara!
> 
> I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, and she gave me a neat little fic idea that I ultimately warped and damaged with some rather shameless jiggery pokery. Officially I have a couple of days until her birthday, and so I thought I'd try and post a little something something every day until the official day!
> 
> I certainly hope it's enjoyed - particularly by the Birthday Girl.

Darkness descended quickly over the Library once the sun had begun to set.  With the safety of the natural sunlight now gone, the small expedition group milled around the library lighted only by torchlight and tried not to think of the danger lurking within every shadow.

Murmurs were kept low by most of the remaining party members.  It was only Professor River Song that could find the will to speak up in an attempt to keep her group calm, and even then, her words were far less optimistic than they should have been.

“You know,” she said with a sigh to Anita.  “It’s funny.  I keep wishing that the Doctor was here.”

Had Anita’s face not been hidden behind her helmet visor, she would have offered her a worried look.  Her voice was slightly worried when she responded.  “The Doctor is here, isn’t he?”  She looked around the shadows for any sign of him.  “He is coming back, right?”

She may as well have remained quiet, for River Song continued with her thoughts oblivious as to whether or not any of her party were in any way interested in her musings.  She kept her eyes on her own reflection in Anita’s visor as she continued to speak along a quiet voice.

“You know when you see a photograph of someone you know, but it’s from years before you knew them and it’s like they’re not quite finished.  They’re not quite done yet.”  She paused only to inhale.  “Well, yes, the Doctor’s here.  He came when I called, just like he always does.  But not _my_ Doctor.”  A smile of remembrance stretched across her face.  “Now my Doctor.  I’ve seen whole armies turn and run away, and he’d just swagger off back to his TARDIS and open the doors with a snap of his fingers.  The Doctor in his TARDIS.  Next Stop: Everywhere.”

A light huff of irritation preceded an equally irritated voice from the landing above them and the doctor stood in the centre of the railings of a small flight of stairs.  “Spoilers.”   He rushed from the shadows and leapt down a small flight of stairs and over a barrier at the bottom.   “Nobody can open a TARDIS by snapping their fingers “It doesn’t work like that.”

River raked her eyes up to his and made sure to keep her eyes narrowed with displeasure.  “It does for the Doctor.”

The Doctor regarded her in much the same manner that she regarded him.  His voice held irritation and authority, but was spoken almost at a hiss.  “I _am_ the Doctor.”

River Song gave an indignant snort and looked away from him.  “Yeah.  Some day.”

Not wanting to continue this line of conversation, the Doctor composed himself a little and took in a breath.  Calmed he looked toward the group.  “How are you do…”

His words cut off sharply and shifted to a startled exhale as a sudden rolling energy field invisibly hurtled toward and then through him.  He twisted and turned in his stand as the room filled with the crackling, zapping, sound of building electrical energies.

“What?” he growled impatiently as he stalked around River song to walk around the perimeter of the room.  “What?”

“Stay back people,” River ordered sharply as she snatched a weapon from a holster on her hip.  “Whatever this is, I’ve got it.”

The Doctor growled and then ducked into a light stoop as a blue tendril of energy shot over his head.  “You don’t even know what it is,” he snarled as he watched another vine of pure energy shot out from the other end of the room to intercept and twist around the original.  “And I really don’t think that your gun will be much of a match against pure energy, Professor Song.”

“Probably not, _sweetie_ ,” she called back facetiously.  She aimed her gun at the twisting vines of energy that had begun to swell into a ball of light.  “But this is a transmat energy field.”  She rolled her eyes upward in disgust.  “A very _primitive_ one, of course.”

“Yes,” he barked hotly.  “I’m very aware of what it is.  Time Lord, remember.” 

“I’m not likely to forget,” she sang flirtatiously. 

He huffed under his breath.  “And don’t call me _sweetie_.”

“ _Pretty boy_ , then.”  Her flirtation fell back into seriousness as the Ball swelled into a massive blue sphere.  “And I also _never_ forget that wherever the Time Lord goes, bad things tend to happen.”  She gestured toward the sphere of light.  “Unexpected guests aren’t usually the friendly type.”

He pointed harshly at her from the other side of the sphere.  “Leave this to me,” he ordered.  “And put down your gun.  By Rassilon’s robes you humans.  You’re all about shooting first and never asking the questions.”

“It’s called _survival_ , Doctor,” she growled in reply. 

“It’s barbaric,” he countered hotly.  “And the reason that your people get themselves into so much trouble.”

“Oh like you can talk,” she snapped in response.  She levered her eyes to fall along the sights and held the gun high in wait.  “Really.  I’ve never encountered anyone who courts danger like you do.”

“And what are you, then, my _protector_?”

She grinned a flirtatious smile and winked through the energy field at him.  “Oh.  So much more than _that_.”

He blinked a rapid flash in his eye, but recovered with a quick cough.  “Well.”  He adopted an expression of disgust.  “Your services are no longer necessary,” he said coolly.  “I can protect myself.  Have done a pretty good job of that for over nine hundred years.” He gestured at her weapon.  “Put it down, will you?”

River song licked at her lip.  Her voice was little more than a breath as a figure materialized in the field head of her.  “No.  I don’t think that I will.”

“River!” He boomed.  “Put the gun away.”

“No,” she breathed long as the figure materialized fully in front of her.

It was the purple of the jacket that seemed to materialize first and as the figure’s shoulders tipped and fell in time with a casual walk, blonde hair and black trousers came into view.  It was as though the stranger was a tourist walking from one end of a tunnel to another.  Her eyes were wide and curious and quite obviously blind to the muzzle of a gun pointing at her from the other side.

“Humanoid,” she called across to the Doctor, who had gone quiet.  “Female.”

“Please don’t shoot her,” the Doctor whispered hoarsely.  “River.  Put down the gun.”

“Oh,” she chuckled with a throaty breath as the face of the woman, that had been partially obscured by the swirling energy of her transmat field, emerged through the sphere walls.  “I really don’t think so.”

“Professor Song,” the Doctor thundered angrily.  “Drop the weapon!”

Brown eyes finally met with green and Rose Tyler let out a gasp when it registered that in order for her to see the green eyes of River Song she had to do so down the barrel of a weapon.

“Raise your hands,” River ordered firmly, raising her voice to be heard over the final expulsion of energy from the transmat field.  “I’m feeling a little annoyed right now so I have a very itchy fingers.”

Rose Tyler’s eyes and her mouth gaped in shock at both the sight of an armed woman and the obviously legitimate threat upon her life.  She inhaled a deep gasp and staggered a couple of feet backward.

“I said: Get your hands up where I can see them, sunshine,” River snarled fiercely.

Still disorientated from her walk through the dimensional canon, Rose tripped over her own feet and tumbled backward on to her ass.  She coughed out a yelp and then a moan as her hip protested her landing.

There was a growl almost primal in its delivery from over Rose’s shoulder.

“River.  That’s enough.”

“No, _sweetie_ ,” River growled back as she took a step to approach the now prostrate woman.  “This little lady can tell me who she is and why she’s here before I’ll lower my weapon.”

Rose looked up to River song with a tic of annoyance in her eye.  “ _This little lady_ is right _here_ , you know.”  She petted the air in front of her.  “Put the gun down, I’m not here lookin’ for trouble.”

“Check her for weapons,” River ordered to someone likely standing over her shoulder.

Rose shook her head and held at her stomach.  “I’m not carrying weapons,” she growled as she rolled onto her hip and coughed at the ground.  She retched a dry heave and then moaned pitifully.  “You know.  On second though.  Shoot me.  Please.”

“That can be arranged.” River Song watched as the Doctor finally found himself able to move and quickly dropped at the woman’s side.  “What’re you doing?”

Her eyes widened to watch him fall on his hip behind the girl and practically spoon against her as he leaned up and over her shoulder to speak to her.  His voice was deep, low, and comforting as he attempted to soothe the dry-retching woman.

“You’re just experiencing your basic transmat nausea,” he soothed gently with a light touch of his hand on her shoulder.  “It’s unpleasant, and makes you feel like death would be prefereable, but it’ll pass.  Just concentrate on my voice and take slow and deep breaths.”

“If I do that,” she managed through her panted breaths.  “Then I’ll end up heaving all over the floor.”

“Probably,” he admitted with a shrug and a rub at her shoulder.  “But a productive heave is a lot less painful than a dry-retch, wouldn’t you say?”

“If I start productively heaving, then so will everyone else in here.”  She rolled her shoulder backward to lean against his chest a little, but found herself quickly rolling back forward to pant at the ground.

“Ahh yes,” he breathed with a light chuckle in his tone.  “The Empathetic response to a fellow member of your species bringing up his or her lunch.  Of course you know that research has shown that it is more of an instinctual response dating back to the more tribal times of your ancestors.”  His eyes remained tightly on her as she shifted to lie down on her back to look up at him with a soft gaze.  “Because.  Well.  It was important, wasn’t it?  No real medical knowledge back in those days, were there?  A simple illness could wipe out an entire tribe.  So if one member of the group ate something bad and threw up their lunch, then it made sense that all members of the tribe should toss it up as well.”

Rose raised her hand to lightly draw the pads of her fingers along his cheek.  “Doctor…”

He beamed a wide smile down at her.  “Hello.”

“Fancy meeting you in a place like this,” she said with a chuckle.  “Come here often?”

“Not often enough apparently,” he answered with a smile.  He rolled onto his backside to sit up straight and held his hand out to assist Rose in rising up beside him.  He gave a light grunt as she tugged against this hands and pulled herself to a seated position. “Feeling a little less likely to expel the contents of your stomach, and ready to do a little running, Rose Tyler?”

Rose couldn’t help the grin that spread across her cheeks.  “I don’t even get a few minutes to appreciate that I’m here before you have me running, Doctor?”

“Relaxing and reflecting are for the fishes,” he shot back with a grin and a waggle in his brow.  “Now running.  Running is for the Doctor and Rose Tyler.  It’s what we do best, isn’t it?”

“Which means you’ve gotten yourself into a spot of trouble, then, doesn’t it,” she teased with smile touched by the very tip of her tongue.

The Doctor’s smile fell just slightly at the sight of her smile, but quickly picked up again when he let his eyes rise again to hers.  “Well.  Technically…”

“You aren’t blaming the TARDIS, are you?”  She drew herself to a shaky stand and held her hands out to the Doctor to invite him to let her help him up.  “Really.  You need to take a little ownership, Doctor.”

He remained on the floor for a moment, just looking up at her with a reverent smile. 

“Well,” she pressed again with a wiggle of her fingers in invitation for him to take her hands.  “Are you?”

“Actually,” River Song cut in sharply as the Doctor took Rose’s hands, but used his own leverage to haul himself to his feet.  “I believe he’s blaming _me_.”

Rose’s eyes travelled up with the rise of the Doctor as he pulled himself to his feet and towered over her: a grinning skinny protector.   “Is that true?  Are you leveraging your blame all about the place now?” she queried as he ran his hand up her forearms to her elbows, and then tipped them lightly toward him in a silent request for a hug.

“Not now,” he demanded as he stooped at the knees, looped his arms around her hips, and then straightened to lift her feet off the ground in a fierce embrace.  “More important matters at hand than whose fault it is that the TARDIS landed me here.”

She squealed just the slightest of giggles against his ear as her arms locked tightly around his shoulders and even let her legs swing as he twisted the two of them side to side.   “Oh, Doctor.  I’ve missed you.”

He let her feet touch on the ground and tsked lightly as he rested his forehead against hers.  He kept his hands held firmly on her back to press her in against him.  “Missed me, Rose Tyler?  Now why would you want to go and do something like that for a worn out old man like me?”  He kept his hold firm, kept her closely against him.  “A brilliant woman like you should have herself an absolutely fantastic life of love and adventure, not worry about a weary old Time Lord.  Well.  Not really _old_ when you compare my age against other Time Lords.  Still a teenager, me.  Really.  But weary, yes, I’ll take that title.”

“Love and adventure, Doctor?” she queried with high brows. 

“Yes,” he croaked softly.

“Not without you,” she vowed fiercely.  “Never without you.”

The Doctor stared at Rose for a long moment.  There was both confusion and awe in his expression as he let his eyes dance from one eye and to the other and then back again in search for the confirmation of her words.  He could feel the light skip inside both hearts at her declaration.

River Song ended his silence with a harshly hissed question.  “Well it’s obvious that you two know each other.  Would you like to share with the rest of us who she is?”

“Oh, uh,” the Doctor spluttered uncomfortably as he pulled back from Rose and turned toward River Song. 

She rolled her eyes, shook her head, and blustered past him with a look of frustration.  She very quickly held out her hand to Rose.  “Professor River Song, and who are you?”

Rose looked down at her hand, then looked up and opened her mouth to answer.  She was beaten to it by the Doctor, who possessively slid his hand into hers and clutched tightly and took a very slight stride forward to stand a fraction of an inch in front of her. 

“This is Rose Tyler,” he said in a firm voice of warning.  “A Former companion of mine, and someone very _very_ special to me.”

River dropped her proffered hand and reholstered her weapon.  “ _Former_ companion?”

He pursed his lips as he considered the question for a second.  Then he broke his pout and smiled slightly as he cast his gaze toward Rose.  “Well.  I think the word _former_ is a little erroneous given that Rose is here.  Now.” He looked down at their hands.  “With her hand in mine ready to run again.”  He raised his eyes to Rose’s eyes and once again smiled a wide grin.  “No longer _former_ , right, Rose?  You’re back now, so that means you are my _current_ companion again.  Which is just … brilliant.”

Rose’s eyes twitched just lightly.  “Doctor…”

“Companion,” River repeated darkly.  “Rose Tyler.”  She made a dramatic gesture with raising her eyes to the ceiling in thought.  “Funny that you’ve never mentioned her.”

Rose gasped.

The Doctor held her hand tighter.  “I’ve only just met you,” he growled.

“Oh, Sweetie,” she cooed facetiously.  “Only in _your_ timeline.”

“Which is actually the most important one to me, surprisingly,” he shot back with definite irritation.  “What you know – or more importantly – what you _think_ you know about me is actually quite irrelevant to me right now.”

“You know,” River growled back on a voice low and controlled.  “You’ve always been rude.  I’m quite used to that.  But this incarnation of yours brings rude to a whole new low.”  She turned her back to him and spoke over her shoulder.  “Come back to me when you’ve changed into _my_ Doctor.  I really don’t have the energy to deal with _you_ as you are right now.  Useless.  Absolutely useless.”

Rose gasped at that and opened her mouth with the full intent to completely defend her Doctor, but he shut her down with a gentle voice.

“Don’t, Rose.  It’s really not worth it.”

“Who is she,” Rose queried cautiously.  She lifted her hand to touch her fingers to his jaw to lever his head gently to look at her.  “I mean to _you_ , Doctor?”

He inhaled a deep breath of apology and then blew out a breath against her nose as he moved forward to press his lips against her forehead.  “I wish I knew,” he admitted softly, worriedly.  He inhaled again.  “Then again, I don’t know that I wish that at all.  Some things are better not knowing.”

“She’s from your future then?”

He nodded in an action that lightly dragged his lips up and down her forehead.  “I guess so.  She’s obviously not used to me, this me, is she?”

Rose chuckled.  “Rude and not ginger.”

“Which will be on the obituary of this incarnation.”

There was a series of small beeps from Rose’s wrist, which caused her to gasp.  “Oh no,” she breathed in a worried whisper that had the Doctor shoot backward.  His eyes cast down to the hand that joined his.  He frowned at the bulky unit wrapped around her wrist that was obviously anything other than a simple wrist watch.

“What’s that,” he queried cautiously.

“It’s a.”  She swallowed and winced.  “It’s the dimension canon return transmitter, and it’s telling me that I have around thirty minutes until I get recalled back into my dimension.”

His voice quietened to barely a whisper.  “What?”

Rose swallows and drew her hand from his to press a button on the watch face.  She rolled her tongue in the valley between let lip and teeth as she formulated an answer.  “It’s part of our Dimension Canon Project back at … Back in Pete’s world.”  She lifted her eyes to his.  “We’re in the testing phase right now, Doctor, and so I only have limited times for each jump.”

“Even if you find me?” His voice was soft.  “I mean.  That _is_ why you’re jumping with a canon, isn’t it?  To find me?”

She forced a laugh at that, and at the insecurity in his voice.  “Oh, because my entire life revolves around you, then, does it, Doctor?”

His eyes darted off to one side.  “Well,” he partially huffed, partly whined.  “I know I’ve told you it shouldn’t, and that you should find yourself a fantastic life that doesn’t have me in it.   But…”

“Of course,” she vowed with a touch of her fingers to his jaw.  “Of course this is to find you.  The whole creation of this project was to get me back home to you, to the TARDIS, and to my fantastic life .. _with_ you.”  She watched his eyes fall briefly to her lips and then rise back up to hers.  “You know.  The Doctor in the TARDIS with Rose Tyler…”

“…as it should be,” he finished gently.

“But we’ve .. I mean I’ve had so many near misses and close calls that Pete put an automatic recall on the jumps.”  She let out a sigh.  “And depending on the jump my time can range from seconds into hours.”

“And when you finally find me, we’re left with only a half hour?”

She nodded shortly.  “I’m sorry.”

His lips pressed into a tight, flat line and he shook his head.  He held out his hand in a request for the watch on her wrist.  “Give it to me.”  At her startled look he softened his demand.  “Please, Rose.  Can I take a look at it?”

“You can’t play with it, Doctor,” she warned with a shake of her head.  “If I try to take it off, then it’s set to automatically recall me.”

He stared at her for a moment in disbelief.  That expression shifted to one of determination as he reached inside his blazer to retrieve his Sonic Screwdriver.  “We’ll see about that, Rose Tyler.”  He held the Sonic up to watch it as he changed the settings on it.  “I’m rather clever with technology.”  His eyes briefly shifted to hers.  “Time Lord, after all.  Space and Time travel is our forte, remember.”  He looked back at his screwdriver and continued with the settings change.  “I’ve messed about with my fair share of jump pads and vortex manipulators over the centuries.  Haven’t found one yet that I can’t play about with and get some desirable results.”

Rose had to chuckle.  “Dare I ask why?”

He offered her a curious look and took her hand in his.  “If I didn’t know better, Rose Tyler, I’d guess you were accusing me of nefarious intentions with my jiggery pokery.”

She gave him a wide grin as he lifted her wrist and pressed the glowing blue tip of his sonic into the face of her watch.  “Tell me I’m wrong, Doctor.  I challenge you.”

He merely winked and offered her a smile.  His eyes dropped again to the watch as his sonic stopped buzzing.  “Right.  I think we’re safe to take it off your wrist now without you being sucked into another dimension.”

She sucked in a sharp breath and shook her hand to pry it free of his grasp.  “Just in case,” she thrust her arms up and around his neck.  “In case I can never find you again, and this is my only chance.”  She exhaled a pair of panted breaths against his mouth and stared hopelessly into his wide and stunned eyes.  “I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t do this.”


	2. Kiss me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor gets something off his chest...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I make no apologies at all, but I do ask that you trust me here....
> 
> Ruki ... I hope this is what you're looking for in this fic!

_She sucked in a sharp breath and shook her hand to pry it free of his grasp.  “Just in case,” she thrust her arms up and around his neck.  “In case I can never find you again, and this is my only chance.”  She exhaled a pair of panted breaths against his mouth and stared hopelessly into his wide and stunned eyes.  “I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t.”_

Rose rolled up onto her toes, tilted her head and pressed her mouth against his.  Her slightly parted lips were a messy fit across his closed mouth, and her nose bumped against his more than once as she struggled to find a comfortable position with a man who wasn’t immediately reciprocating her affection.

The Doctor’s arms flailed unsurely for a brief moment and his eyes flared wide to look upon her closed eyes.  As the centre of her brow began to tighten, however, and he saw the beginnings of a frown, he dropped his surprise, closed his eyes, and snapped his arms around her tightly.  He hauled her up tight against his chest, drawing her toes up off the ground so that they hung limp and scraped across the tops of his Converse.

He opened to her fully with a deeper tilt in his head.  At the very moment that his tongue met with hers, the Doctor found himself flaring with untold desperation for Rose to curl her unsupported legs around his hips.  Oh, but she reminded him of what it was to be a man full of desire for a woman and he wanted to convey each and every one of his ravaging and barely controlled emotions into that kiss.

…If only he could take her now and let his passions completely explode…

He was positive that he voiced that request to her.  A request made to her from a sound made deep inside the back of his throat.  A growl, a groan, a gulp and a growl.  Love in the language of the Uldiari -  in the only language he was capable of articulating when he had his mouth sealed against hers with their tongues warring for supremacy.  It may have been a language indecipherable to her, but oh, Rose Tyler was clever.  The TARDIS was close by, for sure she’d relay the translation into Rose’s mind so that she knew … that she understood…

But Rose ended the kiss.  It wasn’t abrupt.  There was no gasp as she tore herself from him.  It was a slow release, a wet release, and he found himself bereft of her touch to the whimpering softly when she finally drew back from him and took a full stride backward from him.

“Rose?”

She touched at her lips and let a tear track a winding path down her cheek.  She smiled behind her fingers.  “Well.  That was…”

“Nice,” he finished for her with his own smile, which quickly faltered.  “Unless it wasn’t.  Then it wouldn’t have been nice.”  He looked panicked.  “It’s been a while since I’ve found myself in a situation of snogging someone,” he admitted with a sheepish rub at the back of his head.  “Well, someone that I _want_ to snog with.  On a romantic basis, that is.  Not just a genetic transfer or an overrun mind or even a chameleon Arch situation where I really wasn’t _me_ to really consider it _me_ being the one snogging.  Even if it was with this body and this mouth…”

“Are we ready for me to try and remove this now,” Rose queried on a fast breath in the hope that it would end his adorable, and yet embarrassing babble.  She smiled weakly.  “Just have to hope it worked, yeah, your jiggery pokery thing?”

“And just in case it doesn’t…”

“Don’t tell me that you doubt your work, Doctor.”

The challenge in her tone had him folding his arms across his chest.  “Go ahead.”

“I will.”

He broke from his tightened stance.  “But just in case.  Rose.  Let me just say that.  That I…”

“Don’t!” she demanded sharply.  “Don’t you dare.”  She hurriedly unfastened the clasp on the watch.  “You don’t get to say that to me because I’m about to disappear again, Doctor.”

“But you need to hear it, and Rose.”  He inhaled a deep breath.  “And I need to say it.”

“Yes, Doctor.  You do.  But not now.  Not at this moment.“

“Then when?” he questioned shortly.  “Because what I feel for you right now isn’t going to change in another  ten seconds from now,”  He thrust his hands into his pockets and lifted his lip in a petulant manner as he continued his thought.  “Or even ten minutes, ten days, ten years, or even a century or two from now.”

She moaned his name and rubbed at her brows.  “We’re in a library where there are no doubt evil things afoot…”

“Love is love,” he continued shortly as he began to pace.  “All that changes is the depth of it.”  He spun to her.  “Oh, but how can it deepen, Rose?  This.  This intense, indescribable, deep euphoric feeling deep inside here…”  He pounded at the space between his hearts with his fist.  “When you’re _here_ ” He held out his hand to her and wriggled his fingers.

During his ramble, though, Rose had continued on her path of thought that pretty much rode over the top of his.  “Then again, in a dark and eerie place with nefarious aliens prowling the corridors is pretty much the perfect setting for you and me, isn’t it, Doctor?”

“Rose?”

She looked up at him and offered him a one-sided smile.  “Okay.  Go ahead.  Say it.”

“I love you.”

Rose inhaled a shaking breath as she let those three words sear themselves into her very soul.  After a thick swallow, she gave him a watery smile.  “You’re supposed to precede that with _Rose Tyler_ , aren’t you?”

His head tipped lightly to one side and his expression softened.  His eyes blinked slowly as he took her hands in his.  “I’ve already said that,” he answered softly.  “Oh.  Such a long time ago.  On a beach …”  His head rocked to one side and the side of his face lifted as he considered that. “ Well, I was in the TARDIS, you were on the beach.”  He paused a moment to inhale a long breath.  “I started a sentence that needed finishing.  No sense in starting it all over, is there?”

“Only for context,” she whispered as she stepped toward him.

He slid his arms around her and lightly pulled her up against him.  He lowered his mouth to her ear, and spoke in a voice that was soft, yet firm.  “This will _not_ be the last chance I have to say it.”

She stiffened in his hold.

“Rose Tyler.  I love you.”

The watch beeped again on her wrist and she tried to muffle the sound underneath her sleeve.

Twenty five minutes.  That’s all the time she had left with him.

His name escaped her mouth in a soft sound of profound sadness as she slid her hands up his chest to press them against his hearts.  She sighed when he pressed a kiss against her hair.  “I love you, too.”

“Well,” River’s voice chipped with annoyance from the other end of the room.  “While this little reunion of yours is very sweet, might I remind you that we do have a rather glaring problem at hand that needs to be dealt with?”

“Yes,” the Doctor husked with a sharp pull away from Rose and a cough in his throat.  “Yes.  Right.  We do.  My apology.  Where were we?”

“Flesh eating shadows,” Anita offered carefully.

Rose gasped and looked to the Doctor with an expression of disbelief.  “Did she just say _flesh eating shadows_ , Doctor?”

“Oh,” he drawled as he scratched at his sideburn.  “Not really shadows, Rose.  More like a deadly little swarm of microscopic beings.  Not usually _deadly_ , mind.   “

“Well no,” she replied with a shake of her head.  “Of course not.  They only become vicious in the presence of the Renegade Prydonian Time Lord otherwise known as the Doctor.”

“Thank you for being so very specific on just _which_ Time Lord managed to turn them…”  He stopped suddenly and drew himself a full stride backward from her.  “Hold on.  How did you know I was a Prydonian?” he queried cautiously.  “I’ve never even told you the name of my home planet.  How could you possibly know what chapter I’m sworn to?”

Rose’s eyes widened for a moment, but quickly fell into hooded innocence as she gestured toward the nearest shadow.  “Uh.  Evil piranha shadows, Doctor.”

“They can wait,” he growled.

She pursed her lips and shook her head.   “Oh no.  I don’t think so, Doctor.  Evil bitey flesh eating shadows?  I think that needs your immediate attention.”  She looked toward River Song.  “Isn’t that right, Professor?”

River Song’s brows were up into her hairline.  There was a twinkle in her eye and a coy smile on her face as she gestured toward the Doctor.  “Oh.  Not at all,” she sang.  “Please.  Go ahead.  We’ve quite literally got the rest of our lives to worry about the expanding darkness surrounding us.”

The Doctor practically bowed at River Song in thanks.  “Thank you, Professor Song.” 

“I was being facetious,” she huffed with a roll of her eyes to the ceiling.  “But do go ahead and solve the mystery of why your _companion_ might actually know something about you.  We can wait.”

“I am very guarded about who I am…”

River song pulled herself from her lean against the railing and stepped slowly toward him.  “The Time Lord Doctor,” she began sternly.  “Loomed at the Prydonian chapterhouse of Lungbarrow.  Inducted into the Prydon Academy at the age of eight and tutored under Borusa and Azmael.  Barely graduated the Academy with only 51% test scores, and that was on your second attempt.”

The Doctor’s eyes widened with absolute horror.  “How did you…?”

“While at the academy, you initiated yourself into a an organization known as the Deca.  While there, you chose yourself the name of Theta Sigma, and…”

“Stop it,” he growled harshly.

“Condemned to work in Records and Traffic control for five hundred years because of your involvement in the deaths of your former classmates Rallon and Millennia, you stole a TARDIS and left Gallifrey with your Grand Daughter Susan to wander throughout all of time and space…”

 “Enough,” he thundered furiously.  His expression darkened with horrific speed as he rushed the few steps required to close the gap between them.  “How do you know this?  Who are you?”

She didn’t flinch, nor startle, at his approach.  Instead she let one side of her mouth curl upward.  “Oh, _Sweetie_ ,  I know just about everything there is to know about you.”

“Who.  Are.  You?” he thundered furiously.

Her expression softened.  “Like your friend over there,” she looked toward Rose.  “I’m someone who is very _very_ special to you.”

He stared at River Song for a long moment in silence with a hot and steeled glare.  He slowly worked his jaw with grinding anger that deepened his dimples to large hollows on his cheek.  When he was finally able to comment, he did so after the deepest inhale he’d ever drawn.

“You will never be like her,” he seethed through his teeth. “Not to me, anyway.”

“You don’t know what your future holds,” she argued quietly.  “The Doctor.  _My_ Doctor...”

“Stop making that distinction,” he snarled.  “ _Your_ Doctor is _me_.” 

“Far from it,” she snapped in response.  “You’ve got a lot more growing up to do before you become _him_.”  She let out a grunt as she spun on her heel and walked a stride away from him.  “You’re impossible this young.”

A series of alien words suddenly passed through his lips.  Soft and slightly lyrical in their delivery, the Doctor rolled his lips and tongue through rises and falls of the accents that were specific to the ancients of Gallifrey.  There was no doubt that he spoke in the oldest language in the known universe, and one that was very rarely used outside of council chambers.

River Song spun on her heel and brought both hands to her mouth as she inhaled a deep and despairing sigh.  “No, Doctor.  You can’t.”

He continued to speak in the language of his people as he rapidly undid his tie and pulled it harshly from around his neck.

“Don’t you dare,” River warned him with a dark and desperate voice.  Shocked tears filled her eyes.  “Don’t you dare do this to us, Doctor.”

He continued to speak, and kept his eyes on River Song as he stepped in a side-winding gait toward Rose, who watched with impossibly wide eyes as the Doctor suddenly twisted his body toward her.  His eyes snapped to hers, and picked up her wrist.  With his eyes still on hers and his native language still falling from his lips he looped his tie repeatedly around her wrist.

He heard Rose’s squeak of confusion as he lifted her bound wrist to his lips to kiss against it and slowly let his eyes move toward her.  He didn’t let that stop him, however, as he continued to speak softly in High Gallifreyan.

Finally his words ceased and he looked to Rose expectantly.

Rose’s eyes were horrifically wide and perplexed.  Her mouth gaped and closed, then gaped and closed again as she shook her head with utter confusion.

“Just say yes,” he urged quietly.  “That’s all.  Just yes.”

One of her brows dropped over her eye, but she managed to utter the word as though it were a question.

The Doctor grinned widely and snatched her in against his chest.  “My Rose Tyler,” he cheered.  “Thank you.”

“Thanks for just what, exactly?”  She peeped a little inside her cocoon of pinstripe wool and cashmere fabric and stiff Oxford cotton, and managed to wriggle a little to free her head to look up at him.  “We didn’t just get married or anythin’ like that, did we?”

He pressed his lips tightly together into a smile and shook his head as he hummed in the negative.

“Then what was all _that_?”  She lifted her bound wrist up to his face and shook it to let the ends swing from side to side.  “And what’s this?”

“Oh yes.  I should really tie that off, shouldn’t i?” he remarked softly as he took the ends of the tie and deftly tied them into a knot.  He petted the knot with his fingers.  “There we are.  All secure now.”  He rocked back onto the heels of his Converse and pouted his bottom lip out a little as he surveyed the room.  “And so now where were we?  Oh yes.  That’s right.  Vashta Nerada, otherwise known as the evil piranha shadows – thank you, Rose Tyler.”

He stepped away from her and walked around the room as though nothing at all out of the ordinary had occurred at all.  Rose looked toward him, passed her eyes toward River Song, and then looked back to the Doctor.

“And just like that,” she asked flatly, “you go back to business?”

“Mmmhmmm?” he hummed in question, lifting his chin toward her but not shifting his eyes.

“You’re not going to tell me what this was all about, then, Doctor?”  She slouched in disbelief.  “Sorry if you’ve forgotten and all, but the TARDIS doesn’t translate your language from Gallifrey at all.”

“High Gallifreyan,” he corrected gently.

“What?”

“It was High Gallifreyan,” he repeated.  He straightened up and rubbed at his jaw as he analysed two shadows and their differing densities.  “It’s an old language.  Not used much these days.”  He lifted his head and frowned at himself.  “Well.  Obviously not considering I’m the only person who knows how to speak it.” 

“I do,” River injected quietly.

He slowly dragged his eyes to look at her.  “Yes.  I thought you might.”

“How?”

“You seem to know everything else,” he huffed.  “Why not that as well?”

Rose looked down at her watch as it beeped insistently to warn her that she was within the last ten minutes of her jump.  “Not that I want to put any pressure on, but…”

River song gave Rose a despondent look.  “What that was all about,” she began softly.  “What the Doctor just did.”  She closed her eyes and swallowed thickly.  “He just named you as his mate.”


	3. His Future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose and River get talking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again .. no apologies here...
> 
> Happy birthday eve, Ruki!

_Rose looked down at her watch as it beeped insistently to warn her that she was within the last ten minutes of her jump.  “Not that I want to put any pressure on, but…”_

_River song gave Rose a despondent look.  “What that was all about,” she began softly.  “What the Doctor just did.”  She closed her eyes and swallowed thickly.  “He just named you as his mate.”_

Rose pursed her lips with a slight part and peppered out a staggered breath.  The furrow in her brow, and the unsure way that she repeated the word suggested that she was slightly unsure of just what that designation actually meant for the two of them.

“It means,” River Song continued with a somewhat frustrated huff. 

“That we’re friends,” Rose interrupted quickly.  “Just friends.  Nothing more.  Just _mates_ as we always have been.”

“You’re being deliberately obtuse,” River growled under her breath.  “Which isn’t appreciated in the slightest.  In fact I find it rather rude that you expect me – of all people - to have to explain it to you.”

“No,” Rose corrected through her teeth.  “I’m being deliberately … Uhm …”  she battled inside her own mind to find the correct words.  “Non-presumptuous.”  Her eyes suddenly widened as she considered whether or not that was actually a word, but quickly shook it off to look upon River song with a casual expression of nonchalance.  “On Earth, a _mate_ is nothing more than a good friend.  I’m not gonna presume that he means anything more than that.”

“Of course he means more than that,” River snapped. 

“Oh, does it then?”  Rose grinned a cheeky smile.  “Really?”

River Song huffed out a breath of annoyance, and then opened her mouth to respond but was cut off by Rose calling out to the Doctor across the room.

“Doctor.  Did you just make me consent to becoming your girlfriend?”

When the Doctor snapped his head up, he initially held an expression of surprised confusion.  That expression quickly shifted to a grin and a shake of his head.  “Oh, Rose Tyler.  You’ve always been my girlfriend.  That is to say that you are a friend who is a girl.” 

Rose looked to River with her brows set high and her expression suggesting that _she told her so_ as  gestured to the Doctor across the room from them. 

But the Doctor wasn’t quite done talking.

“Well.  You’ve always been a little more than that, really.”  His eyes dipped to her watch as it beeped again and he strode with a purposeful stride toward her.  “There’s always been something that little bit more between me and you, hasn’t there?”

Rose blinked rapidly and peeped slightly when he took her unbound wrist in his hand and undid the clasp to the watch.

“Right from the very start,” he shifted a challenging look to River Song, but continued to direct his words toward Rose.  “From the moment that I took your hand in the basement of that old department store and told you to _run._ ” He let out a breath and looked back toward Rose.  “Oh.  Oh, I knew there was something so incredible about you.  I was captured at an instant without even looking into your timeline…”

“You can do that,” she breathed worriedly.  “You can see…”

“No,” he answered shortly as he dropped his hand to catch the watch in his palm.  “Well.  Yes.  Yes I can, and I typically do when someone intrigues me.”  He kept his eyes low on the watch in his hand and lowered his voice to a quiet murmur.  “But never yours, Rose.  I’ve never tried to look at yours.”

“Why not?” she questioned him softly.

He lifted his eyes to hers.  “Because some things are better off kept mysterious.”   He cupped her cheek in his palm.  “And you, Rose Tyler, are the greatest mystery of them all to me.”

“I don’t have to be,” she whispered softly.

“I want you to be,” he admitted gently as he slipped his hand around her hip and walked in close to her.  “Watching you.  Learning about who you are and who you’ll become rather than simply knowing has been the single greatest joy I’ve ever experienced.”

“Weren’t you even tempted,” she asked curiously.  “You know…”

“Tempted?” he rushed suddenly with a wide grin as he pulled sharply away and strode backward from her.  “Oh, Rose.   I’ve been tempted by you.  Of course I have.”  He spun on the ball of his foot and walked to the other side of the room to collect his sonic screwdriver from the landing underneath the stair rail.  “Tempted to do all manner of things.  Things that can be mentioned.”  He looked back and winked.  “Things that probably shouldn’t be.”  He leaned his back against the railing and worked to pry the back of the watch away from its casing but raised his eyes to hers to offer her a cheeky waggle of his brows.  “Some that may very well be explored now that you’re here with me and have agreed to become my mate.”

She pointed toward the watch in his hand.  “Then you might want to get on with it, Doctor.  We’re within ten minutes of my recall time.”

His eyes fell back to the device but he held his Sonic across his open palm as he held it out to her.  “On it, Rose Tyler.  Just a little pick and a poke and I’ll have you locked on this side of the dimensional wall.”

She let out a quiet breath.  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that if I were you, Doctor,” she whispered quietly to herself.

River song caught her words and let out a sound of curiosity that had Rose turn to look at her.

“Something on your mind, Professor Song?”

“River,” she corrected with a smile.  “Please.  By the looks of things you and I are _sisters_ , so I think we can use more familiar forms of address, don’t you?”

“What do you mean by that?” Rose muttered with suspicion.

“Meaning that you and I are part of a very exclusive club.”  She looked toward the Doctor as he squinted through his glasses to focus on the gadget in his hand. 

“This is where you tell me that you’re from his future where you’re married and have a ton of kids or something, yeah?”

River Song quickly flicked her head to look at Rose.  Her initial look of annoyance quickly fell to softness.  “Married, yes.  Children, no.”  She let out a breath and looked back toward the Doctor.  “No time for children, this man.”

“D-does he know you’re his wife?” Rose stammered sadly.  “Here and now, I mean?”

River shook her head.  “Spoilers, sweetie,” she answered softly.

“But you feel it’s necessary to _spoil_ me?”

River Song nodded and let the barest hint of a smile twitch at the corner of her mouth.  The smile tickled deeper when the Doctor let out a low booming Gallireyan curse at the item in his hand.  “By the looks of things you won’t be around here too much longer.” She looked back to Rose.  “And I want to make sure that you understand he’ll be very well looked after in your absence.”

“Careful, _River_ ,” Rose warned.  “Your _neener neener neener_ is showing.”

“I do strive for victory, you know.”

Rose nodded.  There was a purse in her lips when she spoke. “When it suits your selfish needs, I suppose.”

“Victory is selfish, Rose.”  She smiled widely as the Doctor swore yet again. 

“But _he’s_ not,” Rose breathed in response with a lift of her chin to indicate the man across the room.  “He’ll vehemently deny it by quoting some line about Time Lords not being _unselfish_ , but he’s the least selfish man in this entire universe.”  She looked back to River song.  “He would give his own life to save me, you, that guy over there in a space suit, even these flesh eating piranha shadows without giving it a second thought.”  She raked her fingers through her hair and smiled wistfully toward the Doctor.  “He’s victorious on any day.  When the TARDIS lands him in the middle of a war or alien invasion, the Doctor takes a stand always becomes the victor.”  She looked back at River Song with wide eyes of judgement.  “But his victories are never selfish.  He takes nothing from those victories except the knowledge that another civilization of people has been saved.”

River Song let out a quiet and indistinguishable sound.

Rose continued on.  “His victories are always at his own sacrifice.  There’s no personal reward for him, and he’s never asked for any.”  She let out a breath of reverence and awe.  “The entire universe can learn from him.”

River snorted.  “You make him sound like a saint.”

“A lonely angel,” Rose breathed softly with a small laugh that was little more than a couple of huffed exhales.  “Reinette.  She had him pegged, that’s for sure.”

“And just who is she?” River remarked coldly.

The obvious jealousy in River’s tone made Rose laugh.  “Oh you’re right to be jealous over that name, Professor Song.  She was a pompous and educated French woman who intrigued the Doctor to the point he was infatuated by her.”

“Not that he’d admit such,” River ventured.

“No.  Of course not.”  She turned her head to look at River.  “So.  You.  Are you Human?”

“Does it matter?” River questioned curiously.    

Rose shook her head and shrugged.  “No.  Not really.  Call me curious if you want, but it seems he has a thing for Humans…”

“I’m Time Lord,” River interrupted quickly.

Rose shook her head at that.  “No you’re not.”

“I am,” River affirmed sharply.  “I have two hearts, can regenerate.”

Rose gestured toward the Doctor with her hand.  “If you were, then he’d know that.”  She tapped at her temple.  “He’d feel it in here.”  She dropped her hand.  “He told me that, you know.  Back when we first met and I asked him if he could be sure that there were no longer any Time Lords.  Said if there were any left he’d know.”

“That’s probably why he appears to be so irritated by me,” River offered with a small smile.  “Because he can feel that I am what I am and that frightens him.”  She looked back to the Doctor.  “Trust me, Rose Tyler.  When he learns who I am…”

“Then, what, he marries you because you are both the very last of your species and it becomes a biological imperative for you to get down and rebuild the Gallifreyan race?”

“Careful,” River breezed back with a smirk.  “Your jealousy is showing.”

“Tit for tat,” Rose snipped in reply. 

“Well, then, touché.”

There was silence for a moment, and then Rose let out a rather timid shaking breath.  “Does he love you?”

“He married me,” she answered back far too quickly for Rose’s liking.

“As you’ve pointed out,” Rose muttered.  “But does he love you?  Does he tell you that he loves you?”  She looked at her with a piercing look.  “Is he as passionate about you as he is the rest of the universe?”

River song cleared her throat and looked back toward the Doctor.  “Our relationship is very … _complicated_.”

Rose bit at her lips and nodded a bob of her head that also had her shoulders moving.  “So that’s a _no_ , then.”

“We meet out of order,” River continued.  “Our timelines run in opposite directions.  We’ve known each other for many, many, many years.  I’ve loved him for just as long as that.  But this is the first time we’ve actually met.”

“So what you’re saying is that from here and on in his timeline, you are the one who knows his future, what it holds…”  She took a breath.  “You’re the one in control of which path he takes from here, really.”  She rolled her wrist in the air in front of her and matched the movement with a roll in her eyes.  “I mean the future that involves _you_ anyway.”

River Song nodded very carefully.

“Then please let him choose for himself.”

River shook her head.  “That’s not my path anymore.  I’m here, now, and moving backward.”  She exhaled a shaking breath.  “From here, he has no idea who I am at all, and that kills me.”

“Can I ask you something, then?”

River Song looked toward her and nodded.  “Go ahead.”

“And I’m not a part of his future, am I?”  When River’s head tilted to one side and there was clear indication that she wasn’t going to answer, Rose pressed.  “You don’t know who I am, and there’s only one reason that can be.”  A tear tracked down her cheek.  “I’m not with him, am I?”

River Song shook her head.  “No.  You’re not.”  She exhaled a long breath.  “Until now, I had no idea that you even existed.”

Rose couldn’t help the sob that escaped her throat at that revelation.  She saw the Doctor’s head lift from his task at the strangled sound that she made and he was on the move before her hands could cover her mouth.

“Rose,” he panted worriedly as his arms slid into her hair and he dipped his head to look up into her eyes.  “Rose, what’s wrong?”  His eyes flicked back to the device he’d just abandoned.  “I’m almost finished with it.  So close.  So very close.  Just trust me, okay?”

The fear and panic in his eyes completely undid her.  With a shameless sob Rose threw her arms around his neck and then dissolved against him.  Her hold was fierce and she crushed herself against his chest.  “I love you, Doctor,” she vowed passionately into his Oxford.  “Don’t forget that, yeah?”

“I’m not going to forget it,” he croaked in reply.  “Because you’re going to be here to remind me of it. Every day, Rose.”  He felt the side to side motion of her head as she argued without words.  He pulled back from her and held her shoulders so that he could look into her face.  “Don’t you try to argue with me, Rose Tyler.   It’s going to be me and you, every day for the rest of your life.” 

Rose shook her head and sniffed wetly.  “She doesn’t know who I am,” she whimpered.  “If I’m with you for the rest of my life, then how can she not know me, Doctor?  How?”

He shot a glare toward River Song that was full of hatred and fury.  “How _could_ you say something like that to her?”  His glare darkened.  “Who do you think you are to say something like that.”

Rose dragged his attention back toward her.  “Doctor,” she pleaded lightly.  “Doctor, it’s not her fault.  I forced that information from her.  She didn’t even know what question she was answering.”  She forced him to look down at her.  “I’m clever, Doctor.  You know that.  I worked it out myself.”

“I don’t care,” he admitted on a gravely voice.  “Rose.  Don’t listen to her.  Timelines can be rewritten, changed.”

River Song gasped.  “No, Doctor. Please.   Not that.  You can’t.”

His head shot upward.  He glared at her through blurred eyes full of tears.  “I’m a Time Lord,” he choked.  “The last of them.  There’s no one left to tell me I can’t.”

“Except me,” Rose breathed sadly.

Rose’s words made him pull her closer, but he didn’t respond to them.  “Whatever future you come from, Professor Song, it’s not mine.  My future is me in my TARDIS with Rose and Donna – as it should be.”

“Sounds a little crowded, don’t you think,” River snipped back darkly. 

“The TARDIS is a big girl,” he growled in reply.  “Although I suspect you already know that, don’t you?”

She nodded.  “I do.  I’m very acquainted with the old girl.”

“How…?”

River smiled widely.  That smile, however, failed to reach her eyes.  “Oh, Sweetie, spoilers.”

“Don’t you give me that,” he barked.

Rose tugged at the shell of his ear to get his attention.  “Doctor.  Stop it.  Please.”  She kept her hand on his ear and used her grip to guide his face to hers.  “Don’t waste what little time we have left together arguing with River.”

The centre of his brow creased.  “We have the rest of your life, Rose.”  He smiled a fake smile.  “And you know me.  I do love a good verbal sparring match.”

“Do you love snogging as well by any chance?”

He dropped his mouth to hers and smiled against her lips.  “I can learn to love it.”

“I have to leave,” she blurted suddenly.  “We both know that.”

He shook his head.  “We can find a way.”

“Not without fracturing time, Doctor.”

“I’ll take that risk,” he vowed. 

“But the reapers, Doctor.”

“This point isn’t fixed, Rose .  We can change it,” he pleaded.  “The universe _will_ compensate for it.”

“No,” River Song implored with obvious desperation.  “Too much has happened, Doctor.  You’re too involved – I’m too involved…”

His eyes raked upward and flashed toward her.  “The universe will compensate.”

“My _whole_ life,” she huffed.

“...Will still go on,” he finished for her. 

Rose rubbed at his arms and inhaled a few deep breaths to steady herself and act calm.  “Doctor.  I really should go.”

He stiffened in her hold.  “No.”

“You’re already a part of her timeline, Doctor.  Part of her history, and that can’t change.”  She pressed her finger to his lips when he looked fit to argue.  “I know.  Time Lord.  So you should know better.”

A tear fell form the corner of his eye and slipped down his cheek. 

“I’m not risking the fate of the entire universe just because I want to be with you, Doctor.”  She sniffed a shaking breath.  “No matter how much I need you.”

He inhaled a gulping breath through his mouth.  “I can’t lose you again.”

“You won’t,” she promised with a whimper.  “Cause.  Cause we live in each other’s memories, yeah?”  Her breath escaped her shakily and she whimpered her next words.  “So all you gotto do is close your eyes, Doctor.  And you can see me now and then.”

“I need more than a memory,” he said sadly.  “It’s not enough anymore.”

Her discarded watch beeped incessantly from the floor across the room. 

With jerked movements, Rose threw her arms around his shoulder and lifted up onto her toes to bury her face into the crook of his neck.  “It’s going to have to be, Doctor.  That’s the one minute signal.  We’re out of time.”


	4. Time's Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How much can be squeezed into ten seconds?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A very short chapter. Yes. Sorry about that. RL punched me in the chest and then dragged me around the floor for a large chunk of my day ... so this is all I could get today. I could go on, but I promised a chapter per day for Miss Ruki for her birthday - which is today!
> 
> HAPPY BIRTHDAY! MWAAAAAAAH!
> 
> Before you all hate on me thinking this is where I leave it ... just look at the chapter number and count, yeah? Not quite done yet. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy this itty bitty little tiny chapter. (I'm almost embarrassed to post something so short!)

_With jerked movements, Rose threw her arms around his shoulder and lifted up onto her toes to bury her face into the crook of his neck.  “It’s going to have to be, Doctor.  That’s the one minute signal.  We’re out of time.”_

“No,” the Doctor growled as he tried to tug himself out of Rose’s arms.  “Never tell a Time Lord that he’s out of time.”

“Dålig Ulv Stranden,” she countered softly without releasing him.

The Doctor stilled a moment at those words, and he let the translation of those words slide past his lips in a whisper.  His mind returned to the moment when he truly did run out of time.

“No,” he managed on a strangled whisper as he struggled to pull away from her again to return working on the dimensional jumper still lying on the floor on the other side of the room.  “That’s not happening again.”

She refused to relinquish her hold on him.  She merely held him tighter despite his protests.  “Don’t, Doctor.  Please, just…”  She held him firm and looked up into his despairing face.  “Can we just say goodbye properly?”

He ceased his struggling and let his hands slide down to her hips.  “But I can’t.”

She nodded and smiled at him despite her tears.  “Sure you can, Doctor,” she said with a rueful laugh.  “We’ve had good practice, yeah?”

He pressed his lips together in an attempt to stop their quivering and nodded slowly.

“And you’re obviously being left in…”  Her voice broke and she had to look down to rattle out a choking sob.  With a strong inhale she looked back up at him and did her best to smile.  “You’re being left in devoted hands.”

“But they’re not yours,” he whispered brokenly.

Rose lifted her hand to trace her fingers across his temple to shift his fallen fringe.  “That’s a sentiment that I’m supposed to make.  Not you.”  She watched the track of her fingers as they lightly circled his temple.  As his breath hitched, she shifted her eyes back to his and was thrown by the flaming intensity of his stare.

“Doctor?”

He roughly shrugged out of her hold and brought his hands up to her face.  “If this is my last chance…”

She twisted her head from one side to the other to look at head of his hands, and then returned her eyes to his.  His name left her lips with a questioning whisper when he slid his hands into her hair to press his fingertips to her temples.

“May I?”

She had no idea what the Doctor had in mind, but she wasn’t going to deny him.  “Yes.”

“I haven’t even told you what I’m going to do,” he breathed in awe.

Rose lifted her hands to cover his.  She splayed her fingers over his to push his hands firmly against the side of her head.  “I trust you, Doctor.  You know that.”  The beeping of the watch at the other end of the room shifted to a steady chime.  “Ten seconds.  Do what you need to do, Doctor before it’s too late.”

His mouth hung open lightly, closing only briefly enough to let him swallow as his eyes closed over his tears.  He whimpered as he sought to connect with her and found absolutely no resistance from her at all.  “Anything you don’t want me to see…”

“I’ve never hidden from you before, Doctor,” she breathed as she felt him enter into her mind with all the fresh softness of a deep breath taken on a Spring morning.  She found herself momentarily weakened by his all-encompassing presence in her mind.  “I’m not going to start now.”

“You’ll always be able to see me now,” he vowed tenderly as he moved his mouth toward hers without breaking the touch of his hands against her face or breaking free of her subconscious.  “Never forget me, Rose Tyler.”

Rose let her hands fall to his waist and gripped her fingers around the belt loops of his trousers.  She let out a shuddering whimper against his lips and tugged him closer to her.  “How _can_ I forget you?  Forget _this_?”

“Make me proud, my precious girl.”  He sucked in a breath of air through his teeth and a lip curled in annoyance at himself.  “What am I saying?  I’m already proud of you.  So very proud.”

She closed the distance between them to capture his mouth in a last hopeless kiss, making sure to whisper her affections toward him before sealing her mouth seamlessly against his.

They clutched each other tightly as they joined in both mind and body with holds so taut that they issued the universes a challenge to separate them. 

…It was a challenge most definitely accepted, and in less than five seconds of them coming together that their respective universes finally pulled them apart.

He couldn’t pin point the exact moment that she dematerialised out of his hold and then disappeared from inside his mind.  The effect had been so subtle.  It hadn’t been the violent suction pull of one universe ripping a soul from the other parallel that they’d been expecting.  Much like his beloved TARDIS, Rose had slowly retreated, solid mass disappearing into air.

It took him a good fifteen seconds to finally open his eyes and confirm that she’d gone.  He still had his hands held up in front of him in the same position they’d held either side of Rose’s face.  His lips were still slightly puckered and parted, and tingled with the remnants of her kiss.

He didn’t immediately drop his hands from in front of him, even as he saw the devastated expression of River Song’s face in the distance between them.  He let his eyes switch to each of his hands and willed desperately for Rose’s face to materialize in between them again.

Of course he knew she wouldn’t.  The horrific emptiness in his mind, which had been so alive with her presence only seconds earlier, was proof enough that the other universe had claimed its child and Rose Tyler was again lost to him forever.

His lips were still parted and his jaw low as he swallowed thickly enough to bring his whole head forward in a single convulsion of complete and utter sorrow.

He let his head hang to allow his silent tears to roll off his cheeks and onto the tiled floor at his feet.

“Doctor…”

Since he met her, he’d never heard River Song’s voice so muted.  There was agony in her tone that he could have mistakened was close to what he was struggling with at this moment.  But no.  Impossible.  She didn’t have two hearts to shatter inside her chest like he did, how could she possibly ever understand.

“Doctor, please…”

He finally let his hands break from where they’d remained since Rose’s departure and brought them to his face to cover the puffiness in his eyes, the tears on his cheeks, and the quiver in his jaw.

“Doctor.  I’m very sorry.”

He slid his hands slowly down his face, revealing red eyes, then his stuffy nose and finally his wettened lips.

“Doctor.”

He snapped his eyes toward River Song and then inhaled a deep breath sharply through his nose.  He pressed his lips together, dropped his hands to his sides and firmly nodded his head.

“Right.” He chipped on a broken breath.  “So where were we then?”

River Song dared to approach the Doctor, but did so as though he were a wild animal cornered up against a tree.  She slowly shifted her hand as though to touch him lightly on the arm.  “Doctor.  Please.”

The doctor sniffed again and with such force that it lifted his lips up into a grimace.  “Vashta Nerada,” he said firmly.  “Donna Noble.”  He spun on his heel and stalked quickly toward the edge of the room, where the blinking watch still lay.  “Time to get rid of one and save the other.”  He loomed up and high over the top of that unreasonable little piece of technology and then quickly dropped into a crouch to snatch it up off the ground.  “Definitely about time to do that.”

He was back up into a stand and had the watch stuck into his trouser pocket within a beat of his heart.

“Well then.” He looked the small gathering of people with the brave face of a man desperately shielding the world from his pain.  “No sense in just hanging about, is there.  Time to do what the Doctor does best.”  His eyes flared as a smile crossed his features.  “ _And just what is that_ , I hear you ask.  Well.  I'm the Doctor.  I save people.  It's what I do. So come on.  Allons-y!”


	5. Goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> River sacrifices herself for the Doctor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was only supposed to be a short little snippet that led to the fun stuff ... but it got away form me and the next thing you know it's 1600 words long.
> 
> I was also going to ignore it completely and just head off on my ending ... but I realized that I couldn't ... gah.
> 
> So ... here it is ... not apologising .. much ...

He was face down and on his belly when he finally came to.  It didn’t take him very long to realize that he was handcuffed to a pillar.  He looked up with a mixture of annoyance and fear to see why River Song had attacked him and rendered him unconscious.

..A cheater’s tactic if you asked him.

He quickly looked toward her and propped himself up with one hand.  “Oh, no no no!  What are you doing?  That’s _my_ job.”

She lifted her eyes from her task to offer him a dry look as she answered in an equally dry tone of voice.  “What, I’m not allowed not have a career I suppose?”

 _Not one where you unnecessarily martyr yourself_ , he muttered in his mind as he looked back at his bound wrist and tugged at the cuff holding him in place.  He flicked his head back toward her as he considered the ties around his wrist.  “Why am I in handcu – Why do you have handcuffs?”

She looked to him with a cheeky smile and a waggle in her brows.  “Spoilers.”

 _Here we go again_.

He curled a lip in annoyance.  “This is not a joke,” he growled.  “Stop this – all of it.”

She paused what she was doing and licked at her lip in thought.  With an exhale and a blinked she shook her head and went back to it.

“You enjoy it, you know.”

“What, BDSM?” he short back shortly.  “No taa.  I get my fair share of being hog tied and bound outside of the bed room.”

She just chuckled and continued to tinker with her watch.

“This will kill you, River,” he pleaded.  “At least I stand a chance at surviving this – well – with a new face, maybe.”

“A younger one, perhaps,” she breezed back with a smile.

“At least I have a chance.”

She shook her head.  “You wouldn’t have a chance and neither do I.”  She looked to a timer on the wall.  “Im timing it for the end of the countdown.  There’ll be a blip in the command flow.  That way it should improve our chances of a clean download.”

His eyes widened and the Doctor pleaded as much with his look as he did with his voice.  “River, please, no.”

She didn’t look up at him as she let a sorrowful smile curl at the edges of her mouth.  “Funny thing is, this means that you’ve always know how I was going to die.  All the time we’ve been together…”  her voice broke just slightly.  “The one-sided togetherness that it was.”

She let her eyes shift to his.  “I had always hoped that there would be a time where you’d love me as much as I did you, Doctor.  I can see now why you never could.”

“Spoilers,” he begged pitifully.  “River.  You can’t say thing like this to me.  I can’t know my future.”

“Oh,” she breathed with a smile.  “A little here and there isn’t a bad thing, is it?”

“That all depends,” he corrected urgently as he tugged vainly at the ties that held him in place.  “Some things need to be a surprise.  I like surprises.”

“No you don’t,” she argued with a smile and a shake of her head.  “You hate them.”

“Well, not _all_ of them.”

“The ones that matter,” she added. 

“River,” he pleaded gruffly.  “Please don’t do this.  Let me.”

She sniffed and looked to him with watering eyes.  “It’s never a good thing when you realize that most of your life’s been a lie.”  She swallowed.  “The best parts of it, that is.”  She looked down at the fastenings holding her in place and then looked up at him.  “The last time I saw you – the real you…”

“I _am_ the real me,” he corrected softly with a tip of his head.  “I am, and will always be the Doctor. No matter what face I wear and how old I become.”

She winced, but then nodded.  “Sorry.  The future you, I mean.”  She blinked slowly and looked to him in complete sorrow.  “You turned up on my doorstap with a new haircut and a suite.  You took me to Darillium to see the singing towers.”  Her head dipped to one side in fond remembrance.  “Oh, what a night that was.  The Towers sang…”  She looked to him.  “And you cried.”

His mouth flapped in confusion.

“You wouldn’t tell me why,” she continued.  “But I suppose you knew that it was time – my time – time to come to the library.  You even gave me your sonic screw-driver.  That should’ve been a clue.”

He shook his head.  “Why are you saying this, River?  Why are you doing this to me?”

She shot him a flaming look of fury.  “Doing it to _you,_ Doctor?”

He rattled impatiently at the cuffs.  “If you know me.  If you ever knew me at all, then you’d know not to tell me this.”  He continued to tug against his binds.  “My future isn’t _yours_ to reveal.  You don’t have that right.”

“When it’s part of _my_ future, Doctor, then yes I can.”  She looked down at the pair of screw drivers sitting atop her diary with a smile.  They were clearly out of his reach.  “She’s nice, you know.”

He raked his eyes up from the screw drivers to her face.  “Who is?”

“Rose.”

He shook his head at her.  “Don’t bring her into this, River.  Don’t distract me with her name so you can do this.  This.  This incredibly selfish…”

“You can talk,” she growled in reply.  “I’m not as soft hearted as your Rose Tyler who looks at you through innocent eyes of an infatuated child.  I see you for who you are and for who you’ve always been.”  She hissed out a breath.  “A selfish, egoist of a man.”

“And yet you married me anyway,” he growled.  At the sudden and surprised jerk of her head he let out a low chuckle.  “You whispered my name into my ear.”  He paused.  “Well.  The name I used at the Academy, not the one given to me on my name day almost a millennium ago, anyway.”  His cheeks puffed out and he blew out a breath as he sat back on his heels.  “Probably easy enough to find out, I suppose.  If you had any records from Gallifrey.”  He lifted his eyes back to hers.  “Which is unlikely given that no Gallifrey means no records.  Rather secretive lot, the Time Lords, didn’t much fancy sharing any information of our society with other species.”  He snorted.  “Why would they?  They thrived on living the mystery of the almighty Lords of Time.”

She choked on a sob.  “Then what makes you think…?”

“I’ve married a few times over the years.  Once on Gallifrey, a couple of times on Earth.”  He sighed and leaned back against the wall, drawing up his knees to card his hand into his hair.  “Never once have I told them my true name.”

She gasped.  “But that name,” she whispered hoarsely.  “You knew what it meant.”

He lifted his eyes to hers.  “Of course I did.  As I’ve repeatedly said to you today – I am the Doctor – and each of my incarnations knows that if my bride is given the name: _Theta Sigma_ , then I’m to trust them because in their timeline I’ve married them.”

“That’s cruel,” she accused along a shattered breath.

He shook his head.  “No.  It’s not.”

“I’m about to die for you, and you can’t even pretend to me that I meant as much to you as you do to me.”

“River,” he returned softly.  “I don’t even know you.”

“But you will,” she countered.  “And you have all of it to come, Doctor.”  She sniffed wetly and looked to him through defeated eyes.  “You’ll see.”  With a blink she released her tears.  “I have to die here today, Doctor.  I die so that you live on.”

“I’d argue, but what’s the point?”

She nodded slowly.  “If you die here, it’ll mean we’ve never met.”  She sniffed again.  “Technically, we haven’t, and I can’t go on in a timeline where you don’t know me, Doctor.  It’s too hard.”

“Time can be rewritten, River,” he argued.  “You don’t need…”

“Stop it,” she growled.  “Not one second of the time we spent together is going to change.  Not a single moment.  Not one line.”

“River.  There’s still time for us to come up with another way.”

She laughed.  “No, Time Lord.  Once again, you’re out of time.”  She looked at the countdown nearing its end beside her.  “It’s ending for me.  But for you it’s only the beginning.  You’ll still have me, you know.  You and I through time and space.”  She looked back to him.  “Oh, but watch us run.  And then you’ll learn.  You’ll know just how important I become to you.”  She exhaled a shaking breath that was as much a cough as it was a sob.  “Maybe not as important as _her_ , but important nonetheless.”

“River.”

“I hate her, Doctor,” she admitted sharply.  She then swallowed and softened her tone.  “She took from you the one thing that I needed most.”

“Which was?”

“Your hearts,” she answered.  Her head flicked back to the monitor as it counted to the last five seconds.  “Oh, God.”

“Please,” he begged .  “Don’t do this.”

“I loved you, Doctor,” she vowed fiercely.  “I just wish that in my last moments, you could’ve loved me too. Like you do her.”

“I’m sorry,” he said ruefully as he extended a hand toward her.  “River.  I’m so sorry.”

“Hush, Sweetie,” she cooed tearfully.  “Until you meet me again…”

She connected the cable across her lap and disappeared into an intense and blinding light.


	6. Donna Noble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Donna shares some words of wisdom to a heart broken Time Lord

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I somehow trip a warning with this fic? Have I gone adult and not realized it? 
> 
> When I opened it just now it asked me permission to proceed ... most unusual...
> 
> I sincerely apologise if this took a step up to a level that took it out of general viewing ... 
> 
> One chapter to go ...

It had never occurred to the Doctor to try and open the TARDIS doors with a snap of his fingers.  Her doors were typically locked, and even if they weren’t, he habitually entered her console room with his key.  It would certainly be a move of total arrogance – and quite possibly a complete insult to the old girl - to lift his hand and snap his fingers in a demand for her to open up to him.

…But why not give it a try anyway?

The TARDIS immediately responding to the snap of his fingers made him smile.  For whatever reason she complied, he wasn’t going to question her – nor would he be so quick to try it again.  Well, after one snap to close the doors anyway…

Donna had watched him walk the ramp from the door to the console with an expression of concern.  She’d said nothing to him as he finalized their visit to the library with a snap of his fingers to close the door, and then a flick of a lever to take them into the vortex.

“Everybody lives,” she offered quietly as she watched his somewhat despondent lean across the console.  His hand hadn’t yet left the lever, even though the TARDIS was by now hovering safely inside the vortex.  “Isn’t that a good thing?”

He quickly lifted his head and gave her a smile.  “Yeah,” he breathed with a nod of his head.  “Yeah, it is.”

She leaned her hand on the console and gave him a critical assessment with her eyes.  Her voice was low, quiet and concerned when she spoke next.  “Then why do you look so unhappy?”

“Unhappy, Donna?” he forced out with a light frown and a smile across his mouth.  “I’m not unhappy.  Don’t have time for being unhappy.  Too much to do.  So many places left to see.

“Did she mean something to you?” Donna queried quickly, deliberately ignoring his diversion tactic.

The Doctor’s face fell and he looked at her with an expressionless façade.

“The professor, I mean,” she continued gently.  “She seemed to know you very well.”

The Doctor lowered his eyes to Donna’s hand as she tenderly cupped his elbow.  He kept his eyes on that hand when he answered her.

“I suspect that she might somewhere in my future, Donna.  But for now?”  He pressed his lips together and shook his head.  “No.  All she was to me was a stranger who knew too much about me.”  He lifted his eyes to look into hers.  “She was a complete stranger to me, Donna, yet she chose to die for me.”  His eyes narrowed and he shook his head with obvious puzzlement.  The perplexed look quickly morphed into a disconnected roll of his eyes.  “Well.  Die for me to preserve timelines at any rate.  Can’t say that I wouldn’t have done the same thing.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it, Sunshine.”

That made him break a small but genuine smile.  “You’d take on the entire universe to make sure I stuck around, wouldn’t you?”

“I’ve still got a lot of traveling in me to do, Doctor,” she snipped back in response.  “And I don’t know how to fly this machine.  Whether I like it or not I need to you around to chauffer me around time and space.”

“Oh,” he said with a light chuckle.  “Admit it.  You like having me around.”

“Yeah, well I need someone to carry my shopping bags, don’t I?”

He dropped his head with a laugh and thrust his hands into his trouser pockets.  His fingertips met with the rough and lumpy surface of something in his pocket and he once again frowned as he drew it from his pocket.  “Ahh.  Yes,” he breathed upon realizing that it was the watch that had brought Rose Tyler across the walls of the universe.  “That’s right.”

Donna looked curiously over his shoulder as he gently placed the device on the console surface and stroked a single touch of his finger along its surface.  “What’s that?”

“A painful souvenir,” he breathed sadly.  “And also reminder that the people who come in and out of my life are truly brilliant.”

“Painful in what way?” Donna asked gently as her hand once again found its way onto his elbow, eager to comfort when his mood fell again.

“It belonged to someone very special, Donna,” he answered with a wince of agony across his eyes.

“So she _was_ special to you then?”

“Oh,” he breathed emotionally.  “So.  So special, Donna.”  His voice broke and he dropped his head to close his eyes over his tears.   “She was the one that proved to me that this old Time Lord was capable of falling in love…”  His head angled off to one side and he winced a tight grimace.  “After…”

He couldn’t continue.

Donna’s face fell into an empathetic frown.  She pouted out her lower lip to offer him a look of sympathy.  She shifted her hold on his elbow to stoke a supportive rubbing motion.  “Doctor.  I’m sorry you lost her.”

The centre of his brows creased for a moment as he recalled the moment that Rose had disappeared from his hold.  He shuddered out a breath and closed his eyes.  “Donna…”

“Regardless of whether or not you know her now,” she continued.  “You do in your future, and your future loves her.”

His frown deepened and narrowed his eyes.  The expression lightly lifted his top lip and he was eventually forced to bare his top row of teeth.  “Whether or not I know her?”

Her expression lengthened in confusion.  “Yes.  The Professor.  You said you didn’t know her right now.”

“Oh,” he huffed, his eyes wide. “Oh.  No, Donna.  No no no no no.”  He shook his head.  “I’m not talking about River Song.” 

“No?”

“That isn’t to say that I didn’t find her to be brilliant, Donna,” he pedalled quickly.  “I’m sure she was.  Brilliant, that is.  Well.  She’d have to be if I take a shine to her in my future.  I can’t see me settling for any less than completely brilliant.”

“Seems you like them pushy and aggressive, too,” she offered with a slow blink of her eyes that preceded her lifting her eyes to his.  “She did have that _take control_ attitude.”

“Sounds like someone else I know,” he answered with a grin.

“Oi,” she snapped on a low drawl.  “Watch it.”

He merely grinned a wide toothy smile in response.

With a roll of her eyes she tried to shield her smile.  “So if you’re not talking about River, then who else?  It’s not like there was an entire city of available…”  She suddenly gasped.  “No.  Oh no you don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

She raked her eyes up and down his skinny pinstriped self with a look of total mortification.  “Not that I can’t understand why you’d end up eventually finding yourself fancying me…”

“Hold on, _what_?”

“But I told you when I came on board the TARDIS that there is going to be no funny business going on with you and me.”

His entire face was contorted in complete and utter confusion.  “What?”

“I mean look at you,” she gestured up and down his body with a wave of her hand. 

He opened his jacket and looked down at himself a moment before raising his head and giving her a somewhat insulted look.  “What’s wrong with me?”

“You’re just a skinny streak of nothing,” she answered back with a huff.  “I’d break you in half just by looking at you.”

He released his hold on his coat and let it fall back heavily over his hips. “Well.  That’s good to know, then, isn’t it?”

“Keep the line drawn,” Donna said with a firm nod of her head.

“Don’t cross them,” he agreed with a sigh.  He then tapped his finger on the watch and then pushed himself backward to step away from the console.  “So now that we have that settled, how about I look into making us some tea?”  With a wince in the centre of his brow he nodded.  “Yep.  I could do with a steaming hot cup of tea.”

“What’s really wrong with you, Doctor?” Donna ventured softly as he walked to the door.  “Did she – I mean River Song – did she remind you of….”

“I really don’t want to talk about it, Donna.”

“Well maybe you should,” she countered hotly.  “Because I don’t much feel like swanning about all time and space with a sulking Time Lord.”

He twisted his head to look at her.  “Well you always have the option of…”

“And I’m not going home, so don’t even think about say that’s an option, Spaceman.”

He chuckled out of one side of his mouth.  “Wouldn’t dream of suggesting anything like that.”

“Tell me,” she pleaded softly.

“She came back,” he said under his breath with a wince in his eyes. 

Donna quickly curled her hands around his elbow.  Her eyes were wide and imploring as she looked up to his.  “Who came back, Doctor?”

“Oh Donna,” he answered with a sigh and a smile.  “You’d love her, you really would.”

“Rose?”

He grit his teeth together and nodded his head slowly.

“If she was able special enough to break through your walls, then I suppose I would,” she mused with a smile. 

“She was able to break through more walls than just mine,” he said with a sigh and let his eyes drift back to the watch on the console behind him.  He inhaled a slow breath and turned to leave the console room.

Donna’s smile fell.  “Oh hold on.”

“Tea, Donna Noble.  I need tea.”

“You get back here,” she demanded with a fold of her arms across her chest and a lilt in her stand.  “Tea can wait.”

“Only when it’s steeping,” he called over his shoulder.

“Don’t you walk away from me, you skinny alien,” she demanded hotly as she stalked back to the console and snatched the watch off it.  She held it in her palm and up to him as she stalked toward him.  “This belongs to Rose?”

His eyes dropped to it.  “Yes.”

Donna’s brows arched high to frame the flare in her eyes.  “Rose Tyler?”

“Yes.”

“So she came back?”

He nodded his head.  “Thirty minutes,” he said quietly.  “I got her back for thirty minutes.”

Her high brows fell into a frown on annoyance.  “So Rose Tyler came back, and I missed her?”

“Donna,” the Doctor said with a huff.  “Can we please change the topic of conversation?”

“No.”

He grimaced a contorted expression of shock that she’d so quickly deny him.  “Donna…”

Donna held up the device.  “She used this to come back, yeah?”

He turned his back to her.  “Archaic piece of technology that it is, yes.”  He waved it off with a dismissive flick of his hand.  “Rubbish construction.  As a loomling I could’ve done a better job than that.”

Donna looked it over with a curl in her brow.  “Well, Spaceman.  I’ve seen some of the trinkets you’ve pieced together, and this is … well … it’s a Rolls Royce compared to your work.”

“Well,” he sang with another flick of his hand.  “That’s because I have to create these _trinkets_ – as you call them – with a snap of my fingers and very little resources.”  He gave it another flick with his hand.  “They had a whole laboratory and technological geniuses to work on this little thing.”

Donna set her jaw just slightly to one side and lifted her eyes to the ceiling.  She held the little bit of technology up into his line of sight to wait for the proverbial axe to fall in the mind of the Doctor.

“It isn’t the cosmetics that makes a device good, Donna Noble,” he continued.  “It’s how it actually works that counts.  Oh, I’ve seen some pretty paperweights in my time, and I’ve seen some ugly little pieces of absolute genius.”

Donna huffed and held the device higher.  “It worked, Doctor.”

“Oh and it may well have,” he huffed.  “But she got recalled, didn’t she?  Because of that thing, her genetic code and …”

Donna waited for the shoe to drop.

“How did she make it across parallel walls and back again?”  He took it from Donna’s hand and looked it over.  “It should be impossible.”  He continued to turn it over in his hand.  “Not without destroying reality and collapsing universes.”

“Might be nice to ask her to find out, might’n it, Doctor?”

“Well,” The Doctor sang.  “It would be lovely to be able to sit down and discuss it with her, Donna…”

“Among _other_ things,” she teased.

He grinned and made a slightly happy noise in the back of his throat, but didn’t look up at her.  “And, yes, _other_ things might be nice to explore.”

She smiled a broad grin.  “So, then we’re going?”

His head shot up and his amusement fell. “Donna.  We can’t.  We really can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Well,” he said with a drop of his brows over his eyes.  “Because traveling between universes … it can’t be done.”

Donna gave him a wary look through the sides of her eyes.  “Why not?”

“You just can’t,” he reiterated.  “It’s impossible.”

“But Rose did it,” she countered with a huff.  “And so did you…”

“A trip that very nearly destroyed the TARDIS,” he huffed in return.  “And even if I could get to her universe, Donna, I can’t guarantee that the TARDIS will have correct navigation on that side of the wall.  We could end up anywhere.”

“So you’re going to just give up, then?”

His expression darkened.  “Do you think I’m happy about this, Donna?  That it doesn’t kill me to be on opposite sides of a dimensional wall from the woman I love?”

“Then what you’re saying, Doctor,” she challenged darkly.  “Is that you’re simply not clever enough to find a way.”

“I said…”

“That you’ve been outdone by the primitive apes of Pete’s World.”

His expression lengthened in disgust.  “What did you just say?”

“That the Time Lords aren’t as clever as humans,” she answered with a shrug and a little bit of a smirk.  “OF course, I already knew that.  Self-righteous behaviour is usually used as a cover for inadequacy…”  She stuck her tongue in her cheek and waited for him to take the bait.

It took only five seconds for the line to go taut.  The Doctor clutched the watch in his hand and pointed his finger at her.  His voice was husky when he countered her charge.  “I’ll show you how _adequate_ I am.”  He straightened up.  “No.  I’m more than adequate.  I’m brilliant.  Clever.”  He walked quickly toward the console.  “I’m sure that if we can reverse the polarity signal on this transporter then we can pinpoint the precise location of the dimensional breach, and land the TARDIS in the area of the originating teleport signal.”

Donna stayed in her spot and folded her arms across her chest as she watched the Doctor walk purposefully around the console of his ship.  “So?  Doctor?”

“Well don’t just stand there, Donna,” he called sharply.  “I’m going to need your help, and then you might need to hang onto something.”  He set the watch in a cradle on the console.  “Interdimensional travel can be very _very_ bumpy.”

“Different to your normal flight?”

He chuckled a low laugh.  “Oh, Donna.  That’s smooth sailing compared to the trip I’m about to take you on.”  He looked up and grinned at her as he hovered his hand over a lever.  “You ready, Donna?”

She grinned at him.  “Where we going?”

“To find Rose Tyler.”


	7. Activity in the Breach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor arrives in Pete's World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't get a post in yesterday ... should've ... but I got lazzzzzzy....
> 
> Here's yesterday's post. One more to go and we're done here!

Jim Harrison had joined Torchwood for one reason:  _Adventure._

He was a self-confessed science fiction junkie who had grown up with dreams of visiting outer space on a fancy rocket-ship and fighting against aliens to protect planet Earth.

Oh, but that was the dream of many young boys, wasn’t it?  It was a dream that lived until somewhere in their thirteenth year only to die a horrible flaming death when hormones and girls replaced space ships and laser guns.  There were some cases, however, that the dream continued to linger, and little boys watching their Saturday cartoons, grew up to fly in those space ships and fight of nefarious alien invaders.

Living the dream meant working hard on his personal appearance, however.  The skinny little nerd with the cracked voice and the freckled face that guided the handsome hero who commanded the ship was never the one that won the girl.  Oh no.  It was always that with the commander who got the girl.  He who had a strong jaw and a solid barrel chest that practically popped through a shiny uniform was always the victor.  Brawn over brains, that’s what science fiction had always taught him.  Muscles highlighted through tight shiny fabric, trousers that were fastened a little too high on his waist, and a take charge attitude commanded on a low booming voice.

He may not yet have found himself in the space above planet Earth defending her people from alien attackers, but he was certainly a force to be reckoned with in the white-walled and soundproofed room of the laboratory for the Dimension Canon Project.  Of all the personnel attached to the project, he had the greatest physical presence.

The majority of the people assigned to this project were the small little whippets in lab coats with pen ink stains in the pockets and too-big glasses perched on their noses.  The geek-squad of the institute that ran around carrying take out coffee cups perched atop the tablets balanced on their forearms and muttering nonsensical terminology in a language that seemed to be created strictly for their kind. 

He would have thought that being so heavily immersed in this culture for as long as he had meant that he could understand conversational geek.  However, no.  He was only able to converse with these individuals when they took the time to speak English and directly toward him.

“Wilson, could you please provide the current diagnostics of the stability of the inter-dimensional breach?  I want to ensure that Commander Tyler’s jump yesterday didn’t destabilize the gap.”

Wilson slid his eyes to his Senior Officer, a Doctor named Calypse, with a narrowed glare of suspicion.  “Verification of breach stability after closure of the inter-dimensional portal was provided immediately after the Commander’s jump, Doctor.  I…”

“Check again,” Calypse ordered with a strangled tone, and one that warned every tech in the room that they had to obey.  “The spatial disrupter detectors have indicated fluctuations in the antifrated pranatic waveform signals from…”

Harrison lifted his hands and let out a breath.  “Right.  That’s it.  I’m out of here.”

Calypse looked up rather innocently from behind Wilson.  “Pardon me, Jim?”

He gestured between Wilson and Calypse with a wave of his finger.  “You two and your geek-speak.”

“It _is_ our job,” Calypse defended with wide eyes and an indiferent tone.

“But not really mine to have to listen to,” Harrison moaned.  “Look.  The world’s not in danger of endin’ any time soon, yeah?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Then you lot will be fine for me to take a break.”  He thumbed over his shoulder.  “Need to grab myself a cup and take a load off.”

Calypse looked up at the clock on the wall.  “Wouldn’t have anything to do with the Commander being due onsite, would it?”

Harrison grinned widely.  “Might do.”

Caplyse shook his head.  “Then head off.  We’ll call you if anything interesting pops up.”

“You nerds need anything?”

“Nah,” Wilson drawled.  “We’re good.”

“Right then,” Harrison shot back with a smirk as he straightened his hair with a swipe of his hand and checked his look in the reflection on the glass door of the fire hose cabinet.  He looked over his shoulder toward Calypse via his reflection and gave him a wink.  “Wish me luck.  She’s a tough one to crack, but I’ll get her eventually.”  He looked again at himself and straightened the seat of the collar and shoulders of his uniform.  “I’ll get the girl.”

“Yeah,” Wilson drawled on a long note.  “Good luck with that, then.”

Calypso snorted as the larger man stepped out of the laboratory to head to the cafeteria.  “Hasn’t a hope in Hades, that one.”

Wilson chuckled.  “Let him keep trying, though.  The Commander is taking it with a light heart and is actually getting pretty creative with her letdowns.”  He looked up at the monitor as he tapped a few commands though his keyboard.  “We’ve even started a pool for the next one.”

“Did you see the state she was in when she returned yesterday, Wil?”  Calypse let out a breath and shook his head.  “A right mess, she was.  I can’t see her being in any way patient with any of his advancements in the near future.”

“Then let him learn,” Wilson huffed.  He switched windows on his monitor.  “I’m in the pool for a Tyler-level slap, so I only stand to benefit.”

“On her misery,” Calypse accused.  “How immoral of you.”

Wilson shrugged.  “I’ll buy her a bottle of wine or something.”  He slid his eyes upward.  “So.  _Antifrated pranatic waveform signals_?”

Calypse pursed his lips to hide a smile.  “What about it?”

“Are you making stuff up now?”  He chuckled and shook his head as he continued to scroll through the data from the breach.  “Because the last I checked there was no such thing as _antifrated pranatic waveform signals_.”

Calypse shrugged.  “Fastest way to get rid of him is to blurt out a series of technological babble-words.”  He looked to the doorway.  “HR are still out on whether or not a scent ban can be upheld without violating some kind of human rights law.  The amount of cologne that guy wears should be criminal.”

Wilson chuckled with agreement.  “Reckon he’s bathing it in.”

Calypse suddenly shot forward and dug the point of his finger into a line of data on the screen.  “Wil.  Check in to that, will you?”

Wilson frowned and squinted through horn rimmed lenses at the information flashing on the screen.  He kept his eyes on the line as he input a series of commands through the console.  “Looks like there’s breach activity,” he spluttered quickly.  “Something looks like it’s coming through.”

Calypse sped around to the other side of the console to slip into another seat.  He quickly typed through a hurried series of passwords and user names to log himself in to check the information feeding in from other surveillance systems.  “Contact Pete,” he growled.  “I’ve got movement from all seven monitors.”  He looked up over the monitor to Wilson, whose eyes were wide on his own information.

“Yeah,” he gravelled in response.  “Already notified.   Seems that he’s on system speed dial if the breach starts to play up.” He shook his head to try and free his sight of his hair as it whipped against a sudden onslaught of heavy winds.  “He’s on his way up…”  He swiped at his hair to pull it from his face.  “What the hell?  Where is this wind coming from?  Don’t tell me we got problems with the HVAC again?”

A haunting, whining, wheezing groan filled the expansive room.  Calypse let out a groan.  “Sounds like it,” he forced out against the wild winds buffeting his face.  “Just what we need.  Breach activity and an HVAC failure on the hottest day of the damn year.”

Pete Tyler’s voice called from the doorway over the top of the slam of the lab room doors, the winds and the howling whine and groaning emanating from the back of the room.  “That’s not the HVAC, gentlemen.  Look alive, we’ve got incoming.”

Wilson jumped up from his seat and ran toward the panic button.  “I’ll get security up here then!”

Pete raised his hand.  “No need,” he assured with a gesture of his chin toward a pulsing blue shape slowly fading in and out of existence.  “He’s a few years later than expected, but he’s expected nonetheless.”

Wilson looked with fearful curiosity toward Pete Tyler.  “What are you talking about?”  He shook his head.  “Anything that comes through that breach is to be immediately considered hostile.”

“Unless it comes through in the form of a large blue police box,” Calypse corrected with his wide eyes locked on the materializing TARDIS.  He nodded toward it.  “Wil?”

Wilson looked toward the shape as it finally and fully materialised at the back of the room.  The loud whine and groaning quietened to a low and steady hum and the winds fell out completely.  The large blue box now sat quietly near the wall.  All unassuming and silent.

Wilson looked to his laboratory partner with an expression of quiet disbelief.  “Is this serious?  _He_ really exists?”

Calypse shrugged his shoulders and cautiously drew himself up out of his chair.  He was in as much a state of disbelief as Wilson was.  “I.  I guess so.”  He grabbed an urgent and worried hols of Wilson’s elbow when the door to the TARDIS slowly opened with a creak of ancient hinges and let out a breath.  Fingers curled around the door’s edge and a shock of chestnut hair emerged poked around the hand not quite hiding the brown eyes that blinked into the light. 

Wilson swallowed.  “Here we go…”

The cautious slightly dropped jaw of the Doctor quickly picked up and shifted to a wide smile as the rest of his body emerged through the doors of the TARDIS.  His hands went immediately into the pockets of his trousers and he spun to walk backward to the rest of the room as he checked out where he’d landed his TARDIS.

“Well.  Here we are then,” he chirped with a wide grin.  “Come on Donna.  You can’t miss this, then.”

Donna strode out of the TARDIS and actually spared a look at the three people in the room before looking toward the Doctor – who had not.  “And where’s that, then?”

“Parallel world.  Earth, twenty-first century, oh, 2012 I’d say.” he answered quickly with his eyes still held high on the ceiling of the room.  He tapped on his temple as he continued to turn. “We’re outside of our home universe.  My time Sense is a little clouded here.   But I can confirm that we’re in London, England.  Land of chips, bangers, mash, jelly babies and a sky full of zeppelins.”  He lowered his head to look at Donna with a wistful smile.  “And hopefully …”

“Doctor,” Pete Tyler’s voice boomed out from behind him.  “Took your time getting here.”

The Doctor spun on his heel and let his eyes fall on the ginger-headed leader of Torchwood.  He beamed a wide grin.  “Donna Noble, meet Pete Tyler.  Pete, this is my companion, Donna.  Extend her the same courtesies as you would for me.”

“Oh,” he answered with a smirk of tease.  “You mean a punch across the face for making my daughter cry?”

The Doctor’s expression fell.  “Oh.  Well.  I suppose that might be less painful than a slap from Jackie for the same crime.”

Pete nodded.  His expression was serious and thoughtful.  “We are considering that as a form of capital punishment.”

The Doctor rubbed at his jaw as he recalled the strike given to him by Jackie back when he and Rose began travelling together.  “Yes.  I agree it might be an effective form of punishment.”  He then dropped his hand and grinned widely.  A happy giggle sounded in the back of his throat.  “So.  Not here too long, Pete.” He thumbed over his shoulder to the TARDIS.  “The old girl isn’t real happy about me taking her though dimensional walls again and will likely get all stroppy and throw a tantrum of we don’t depart fairly soon.”

Donna chirped in with a chuckle.  “Not that a TARDIS tantrum usually affects anyone except the Doctor, So I think we might have time for a tea and a bit of a look around.”

The Doctor looked to Donna.  “Okay, right.  Can’t really argue with that.”  He sighed and deeply thrust his hands into his trouser pockets.  When he looked back to Pete it was with an expression much like that of a beaten puppy imploring to be let out of the rain.  “The TARDIS might be able to wait, but I really cant.  Impatient, me, you see.  Patience really hasn’t ever been a virtue of mine…”

“Amen,” Donna breathed out huskily with her eyes rolling upward to the ceiling.

The Doctor pressed his lips together in a tight purse and snorted through his nose.  “Anyway,” he sang as he released his expression and looked to Pete with a hopeful look.  “Any chance that you could point me in the direction of my Rose Tyler?”


	8. Did You Miss Me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He found his way though .. and then to his Rose. But some great big thug is in his way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rule number one: I lie.
> 
> Looks like that's the case. I had every intention of writing the finish today but, quite simply, ran out of bloody time. Yeah ... I did.
> 
> And because I ran out of time, you lot get stuck with an extra snippet of a chapter. I'm posting this now because I missed yesterday and so had to put up something for yesterday .. and then had to put something up for today.
> 
> **Blinks**
> 
> I really want to concentrate properly on where this scene scoots from here. It's important. so consider this bit a piece of useless drivel to get us to the end game.

She was in line at the cafeteria, right where he expected her to be.

One thing that had to be said about Rose Tyler, well as far as Jim Harrison was concerned anyway, was that she was a creature of habit with a very specific schedule.  Oh, she may deviate a little on the timing by five minutes here or there, but she always walked through the same motions, with the same tilt in her head and sway in her gait.  She was like some incredible blonde robot that autonomously moved throughout her daily activities with seamless ease.  She held the same smile for anyone who crossed her path and would always greet everyone with that smile and a friendly hello that was melodic and just, simply … wonderful.

It was hardly a secret that Jim had a longing for Rose Tyler.  He hadn’t attempted to keep his affections for her shielded in any way.  It was a good way to hold at bay anyone else who shared an admiration for the beautiful daughter of Torchwood’s stern director.

Beautiful was a sorely underrated term for her.  She was a brilliant and remarkable woman.

To date, she had been polite in the way she rebuffed his advances.  She had gently declined him with a warm smile and a touch of her hand on his arm.  Her apology at being unable to accept his advance usually came with an excuse of being in love with another, but he knew there wasn’t another man in her life.  Her life outside of Torchwood was a circus of tabloid articles and the flash of paparazzi camera flashes.   If there was a man who held her close to him, the entire country would know about it.

There were whispers that she was involved with an alien man before her appearance on the social circuit.  Such rumours were ludicrous.  Aliens were grotesque, green, with lizard tongues, sharp teeth, and no way of providing her with any of the pleasures that he could provide her.

He watched her closely as she headed toward the doorway, which took her in a direct line toward him.  Her eyes were locked on the front page of a half-folded newspaper as she sipped tea from a take-out cup, giving her enough distraction that she didn’t notice him step into her way and into a light collision of chest against chest.

Rose peeped in shock, but managed to save her hot tea from spilling on either of them.  Unfortunately, her paper didn’t survive the collision and it fell to a messy pile on the ground.

“Oh, I am so sorry,” she breathed in quick apology when she noted a smudge of lipstick where her mouth had inadvertently brushed with his shirt.  “That’s going to be tough to get out.  Send me the drycleaning bill, please.”  She finally looked up and into his face.  Her expression of shock switched to a look of embarrassment.  “Jim.  Oh.  I’m sorry.  I was focused on an article in the paper and wasn’t looking where I was going.”

He gave her a smile and shrugged his broad shoulders.  The flex in his upper arms was probably not necessary, but it did paint an attractive physique.  “That’s okay, Commander Tyler.  It’s just a shirt.  No harm done.”

“Still,” she breathed apologetically.  “Lipgloss stains end up costing money to clean, and you shouldn’t have to pay for that because I was being ignorant.”

“Tell you what,” he offered with a wag in his brow.  “Have dinner with me.  We can call it even.”

Her eyes closed in a slow blink and she let out a breath.  After an equally long inhale, she shook her head.  “Jim.  I’m sorry, but we’ve talked about this.”

“I know you say that you have a boyfriend,” he said smoothly.  “But there’s no harm in the two of us going out as friends, now, is there?”

Rose blinked at him.  Once again she shook her head.  “I really don’t think that’s a good idea, Jim.”  She gestured between them with a flick of her hand.  “You’ve been actively pursuing me in a _more than friends_ way for quite some time.  I really don’t want to give you the wrong idea by agreeing to go out just you and me.”

“And just why not?”  He stood before her with his hands on his hips and his chest puffed forward in a pose of presentation much like a superhero on a billboard. 

Rose’s eyes widened a moment and she had to gulp a dry swallow.  “Jim.  Honestly, I’m flattered, but I have a … I mean I’m in love with someone else, and it’s not fair on any of us to try and pursue someone else.”

Rose thought she may have heard a familiar happy giggle, and she turned to investigate, but was halted in doing so by Jim taking a hold of her elbow.  Her eyes shot to where he held her.

“Do you mind?” she warned quietly.

“Rose,” he replied on a voice condescending in its delivery.  “I know there is no one else, and if there is, then he’s a sorely inadequate man for someone as magnificent as you.”

A growl rumbled lightly from behind him followed by a quiet feminine hiss, but Jim paid no mind to it.

“You’re aware of the sexual harassment policy we have in place here at Torchwood, yeah?” she queried flatly with a look of warning.  “I’ve been patient with you so far with this puppy-dog .. no .. Rottweiler-type crus that you have.  But enough is enough.  I’m saying back off, and you need to do just that.” She looked down at where he held onto her arm.  Her voice remained calm, level, and even gentle.  “Now. Take your hand off me before I break it.” 

He released her arm and even held his hand up  to prove he’d let go.  “I will be so good to you, Rose,” he vowed empathically.  “So good.  I can take you heights that no other man has ever taken you before.”

She rolled her eyes.  “That’s _quite_ the standard to live up to.  You have no idea who you’re comp…”

He smirked.  “I can certainly do more for you than an imaginary Martian boyfriend can.”

An amused and bright voice with a soft Estuary accent cut in from behind Jim.

“You know.  In my nine hundred years  of life I’ve been called a lot of things.”

An immediate and beaming grin broke across Rose’s face.  “Doctor…”

Jim turned on the ball of his foot.  He first caught sight of a red headed woman whose furious glare could rival any aggrieved woman he’d ever met in his life.  He then shifted his eyes toward the second figure,  a tall man in a long tan jacket that shielded a skinny fame clad in a brown pinstripe suite and Converse sneakers.

He noted the absence of identifying tags, but before he could remark on it, the ginger woman shifted a curious look toward the fellow in the suit.

“None hundred years, Doctor?”  She eyed him up and down. 

“Nine hundred,” he answered dismissively.  “One thousand, Twelve hundred.  Oh I’m somewhere near there.  It actually gets to be difficult to keep track of after a while.”

Donna’s brows shit up into her hairline and she continued to analyse him up and down.  “If you’re that old, then You’d think at your age you’d know the value of a good meal.  Wouldn’t you?”

He slumped.  “Donna.  Please.”  He gestured toward Jim with both hands.  “I was about to do a thing.  A good thing.  A thing where timing was essential!”

“Well then, Time Lord,” she teased.  “Who claims to be at one with _time_ …”

“Well,” he groused with a roll in his eye.  “The _time_ for maximum effectiveness has passed, thank you.”

She thumbed over her shoulder to the corridor.  “Time machine?”

The Doctor had to chuckle softly in absolute disbelief as he slowly twisted his head to look toward the big man standing between he and Rose Tyler.  “Anyway,” he drawled.  “As I was saying.”  He clapped his hands and leaned to one side in hope of seeing the bright smile of his beloved.  “Nine hundred years.  Give or take.  And I’ve been called a vast number of things.”  He slid his hands into his trouser pockets and began a slow and sneaking walk around the giant mass of human flesh.

“Oncoming Storm.  Destroyer of Worlds.  A Fool.  A mad man…”

“Spaceman, dumbo, git…”

“Yes.  Thank you, Donna,” he called as he finally circled around Jim to stand face to face, but several feet away from Rose Tyler. His eyes locked on hers and he had to smile.  “But never.”  His eyes didn’t leave Rose’s, even though his head was angled lightly to ensure that his words were directed toward Jim.  “Not _once_ have I been called an Imaginary Martian Boyfriend.”

Rose covered her mouth in her hands and whispered his name with as much reverence as she would her deity.

He held his hands out and opened his arms to her.  He couldn’t stop the cheeky smile that stretched across his face.  “Did you miss me?”


	9. Hugs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He loves her .. he wants her to come with him ...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RAN OUT OF TIME AGAIN!
> 
> This "post per day" is something else, isn't it? Phew ... I started writing. The characters went about and did their own thing, and next thing you know I'm like ... ah. Yes. Got a bit to get through, don't I. And if I intend on posting today, I have five minutes to do it.
> 
> Here you go.

_“Yes.  Thank you, Donna,” he called as he finally circled around Jim to stand face to face, but several feet away from Rose Tyler. His eyes locked on hers and he had to smile.  “But never.”  His eyes didn’t leave Rose’s, even though his head was angled lightly to ensure that his words were directed toward Jim.  “Not once have I been called an Imaginary Martian Boyfriend.”_

_Rose covered her mouth in her hands and whispered his name with as much reverence as she would her deity._

_He held his hands out and opened his arms to her.  He couldn’t stop the cheeky smile that stretched across his face.  “Did you miss me?”_

Rose tilted her head to one side with obvious wariness.  She let her hand begin a shaking rise toward his face, but held herself back from touching him at all.

“A-Are you real?” she asked him on a shaking breath. 

How brows dropped down over his eyes in question, but he didn’t lower the welcoming gesture that was his open arms.  “What do you mean _real_?  Of course I am.  As real as it gets.”  His arms fell and he thumbed back over his shoulder.  “Don’t listen to steroid man back there.  There’s nothing imaginary about me.”

“So.”  Her voice faltered a little.  “So you’re not just a projection this time?  You know.  Like the last time?” 

“Well,” he answered with a smile.  “If I recall correctly – and my recall is rather superior.  Eidetic memory, me -  I wasn’t a projection the last time we met, was I?”   He winked and clicked a sound out through his teeth.  “In fact, there was considerable hugging, snogging and bonding happening.  None of which would have been possible if I was just a projection across dimensional walls.” 

“Then that means that…”  She lifted her hand.  “That I can touch you?”

“Yep.”   He opened his arms again.  “You can even hug me if you want.  Although…”

His words cut abruptly and a sharp laugh of pure thrill erupted from between his lips as Rose suddenly launched from her timid position and threw herself against him in an embrace so fierce that it took the breath straight out of him.  Fast on the recovery, however, it didn’t take the Doctor long to snap his arms around her waist to crush her against him.  He leaned backward just slightly to draw her feet off the ground, and spun them both in place.

The incredibly melodic sound of her laugh against his ear drew a happy sound from deep inside the back of his throat.  He stopped spinning them, but kept her held against his chest with her feet still kicking lightly in the air at his calves and swayed them both lightly.  His eyes were alight and the centuries seemed to simply disappear as he looked down into her tear filled eyes.

“As I was saying before you so rudely pounced on me like this,” he chided lightly.

Rose blinked quickly a few times and wriggled for him to release her.  “Oh.  Sorry.  You just said…”

“That you could hug me, yes,” he finished with a smile and a lifted brow that was his refusal to release her.  “I did offer up my arms and chest for a Rose Tyler cuddle.  I love hugs.  _Your_ hugs especially.  They’re great things, hugs.  So versatile in their usage, aren’t they.  Hello.  Goodbye.  I love you.  I missed you.  I’m here for you.  I’m cold and need warming up.”

“It’s a gateway affection,” Rose added with a smile.  She looked down to her kicking feet and, unable to touch the ground, made do with standing her toes on the tops of his Converse. 

He winced just slightly at the bite on the top of his foot from the laces of his shoes, but didn’t move to settle her properly on the ground.  Instead he looked curiously into her face.  “Just what do you mean by that,” he questioned somewhat worriedly.   He was definitely a _hugger_ this time around, so this just might be important.

Rose picked at a small pill near the collar of his blazer.  She pursed her lips and kept her eyes locked on the little pill rather than the Doctor’s curious eyes.   “A hug is a precursor to all manner of things, isn’t it?”

“Is that so?” the Doctor questioned quietly with a high brow and a lick at his lip.  “Such as?”

She lifted her eyes to his and blinked slowly.  “If I need to explain _that_ to you, Doctor, then perhaps Jim here is better suited to saftis-“ she breathed the _F_ sound around the finger that he suddenly pressed into her lips.

“Please don’t finish that thought, Rose,” he pleaded. 

“If I hug you,” she mumbled around his finger.  “Then it just makes me want to do more, you know?”

That made his worry dissipate.  He dragged his finger from her lip and grinned a cheeky smile into her face.  “Like what?”

“Well,” she began with her eyes once again trailing off his to stare off innocently to one side.  She spoke as though her mouth was full when she continued.  “I hug you, and then I want to kiss you.”

“And?” he teased lightly.

She still kept her eyes from his.  “And then I want a snog, don’t I?  A proper one.”

“Ahh,” he breathed out carefully.  “I see.”  He shifted his head to one side with the intention of drawing her gaze to him.  “Anything else?”

“Well…” Her mouth sounded like it was full of dry cotton wool.

“Yeah?” he pressed with a giggle in his voice.

“Uhm…”

“I’m waiting,” he sang quietly as he snaked his head side to side to capture her eyes.

Her eyes then snapped to look at him, and narrowed at his glee.  She slapped him on the chest and pushed him away from her.  “Oh.  You.  Prat,” she charged as she freed herself from his hold and staggered backward.  “You’re gonna make me _ask_?”

He let out a breathy laugh, but smoothly stooped forward to slide one arm around her waist to capture her yet again.  He shook his head as he drew her close and brushed his mouth against hers.  “You’re adorable when you’re stammering, you know that?”

She peeped when he jerked her closer to him, and then clutched at the lapels of his blazer.  There was a growl of challenge in her voice and she rolled up onto her toes to bring herself more in line with him.  “Just shut up, you damn cheeky alien, and kiss me.”

“Well,” he said with a chuckle.  “When you put it _that_ way.”

He dropped his mouth to hers to claim her as his with a gentle and exploratory kiss.  It held none of the desperation of their kiss back in the library.  It wasn’t messy, nor was it loud and wet.  They didn’t open mouths to each other and whimper and groan into one another, but that didn’t mean that it lacked in passion.  The way his arms snatched her tightly toward him, and the way her fingers carded themselves through his hair and danced across the back of his neck, the loud and peppered way that they each inhaled and exhaled through their noses to maintain their contact displayed a passion that a messy kiss could not.

His head swooped when hers shifted, and his arms tightened further around her, all to maintain the contact and the press of lips against lips.

It was clear to anyone watching that the two of them were battling it out to see who would pull away first, and by the looks of it, neither of the pair were about to initiate their parting.

Which left it up to Donna to pull them apart. 

She positioned herself beside them, standing in the blurred line between the pair that should have been decidedly clear as to where one began and the other ended, but was now a mess of tan and purple and white and black …

…And with lots of sucking sounds.

“Right you two,” Donna finally hollered.  “I think that’s about enough, don’t you? You’ve got plenty of time later for snogging and …”  She blanched.  “And _whatever_ else you both intend on doing that I hope to never ever _ever_ see, hear, taste, smell…” 

Rose pulled back from the Doctor with a laugh, whereas the man himself spluttered in disbelief at his best friend.  “Smell, Donna?  _Taste_?”

Her eyes widened.  “Please forget that I said that.”

“The images,” he continued with a fluster.  “I have these images now.  In my mind, Donna.  My frankly brilliant mind that should absolutely never have to imagine something like that.”

“You?” she huffed indignantly in response.  “Blimey, Spacemen.  The images I have…”

“Can in no way be as vivid as what I’m seeing right now!”

She put her hands on her hips.  “Oh and why’s that then,” she snarled.  “Because of your high and mighty _superior_ biology?”

“Yes,” he barked in response.

Rose exhaled a breath of complete and utter shock as looked between the two of them with a shake of her head.  “Wow.”

She stepped in between the two of them and turned to face Donna.  She pressed her back against the Doctor’s chest and lightly shuffled him backward and away from Donna.

“Hi,” she greeted with a wide smile as she extended her hand.  “I’m Rose.  Rose Tyler.”

Donna looked down at Rose’s hand with a curl in her brow.  She lifted her eyes to Rose, but didn’t move to shake her hand.  “You want to shake hands?”

Rose slumped a little.  “You’re _only_ humanoid,” she breathed apologetically.  “Not _Human_ , and shaking hands isn’t customary for you, right?” 

“Uhm…”

“I really hope I didn’t offend you or anything,” she blustered out.  “Where are you from?”

There was a slight twinkle in her eye.  “Chiswick,” Donna answered with a smile.

A slight crease formed in between Rose’s brows.  “Chiswick?” 

“Yeah,” she answered with a grin.  “Chiswick.  West London, England, Earth.  Solar System.” 

Rose looked at her own hand with a shake of her head.  “And the one part of the United Kingdom where they don’t shake hands in greeting.”

“Nah,” Donna drawled with a grin as she launched forward and pulled Rose into an embrace.  “But we do hug,” she said happily.  “Especially when we finally meet the one thing in the entire universe that their best friend needs to make him happy.” 

“Uh,” Rose peeped.  “Okay?”

Donna released her and held her upper arms firmly in her hands.  “Donna.  I’m Donna Noble.  Been travelling with Dumbo here for a few months.”

“I really resent that moniker,” the Doctor growled petulantly.  “I’m a Time Lord.”

“Who is a Dumbo,” Donna said with a shrug as she released Rose’s arms.  She watched as Rose was immediately taken into the Doctor’s arms and held back against his chest.  “Wasn’t for me, he wouldn’t even be here.”

“Still needs that kick in the behind, then?” Rose queried with a smile.

“Yeah, and wear a steel cap when you do it.”  She looked him up and down.  “All bones, that one.  You’d break a toe giving him a swift one.”

Rose chuckled.  “That’s why there are far better ways of gettin’ on his nerves than kicking his bum.”

Donna looked intrigued by that.  “Oh?  Anything that you’d care to share with me.”  She flicked a look toward the Doctor.  “Because I’m still gonna be part of this travelling party.  Rose Tyler being back or not, Doctor.  I’m staying.”

His jaw flapped just slightly.  “Well.  Uhm.”

“Oh don’t you even think of kickin’ me out, Spaceman,” she challenged him with a fold of her arms across her chest.  “TARDIS is plenty big enough for the three of us.”

“Well…”

“Does that mean you’re taking me back,” Rose queried gently.

The Doctor gaped in shock at that.  “Well yes.  Of course.  Why else would I have travelled through the dimensional walls, risking my TARDIS and the lives of Donna and me if I didn’t intend on taking you back home with me?”

“Well,” she spluttered dryly.  “I thought.  With that River Song girl…”

“Forget about her,” the Doctor said firmly.  “Keep her out of your mind.”

She spun in his hold and shook her head as she gave him an imploring look.  “But, Doctor.  How can I?  She’s your future.”

“ _You_ are my future,” he corrected sharply.  “You.  Noone else.”

Rose backed up out of his arms.  “But Doctor.  You can’t change your future like that.  She’s there, she’s a part of your life – a very important part.”  She swept her hand over her hair to push it back from her face and held it at her neck as she looked away from him.  “I can’t let you do that.”

Donna commented before the Doctor could formulate any words. 

“What’re you saying, Rose?  That you’re not coming back with him?”

Rose shifted her eyes to Donna and shrugged.  “I can’t.  If I go back with him, then I’m rewriting his timeline.”  Her eyes moved back to the Doctor.  “I won’t let you do it, Doctor.  I love you.  So much.  So much it hurts.”  She backed off a step when he lifted a hand to reach for her.  “But your timelines are too important.  _You’re_ too important.  If I am the reason that all changes and you destroy …”  she huffed.  “Well.  Everything.”

“Well,” the Doctor choked quickly with a light dip in his head and a rub at the back of his neck.  “It won’t destroy _everything._ ”

“But enough,” she countered tearfully.  “And I’m not risking the fate of the whole of the multiverse for my own selfishness.”

He blinked and looked at her with an expression of absolute reverence.  “Rose…”

“I’ll keep everything going over here, Doctor,” she continued.  “Keep this universe safe, I ‘spose.”  She forces a smile.  “And you can go back to your side of the parallel wall and protect that universe.”  Her voice cracked.  “Meet this River Song and Fall in love with her – like you’re supposed to.”

“Is that what you want, Rose?”

She shook her head.  “No.  Not at all.”  She inhaled shakily.  “But it’s what we _have_ to do, isn’t it?”

Donna slapped the Doctor on his arm.  “You can’t let her do that, Doctor.”

He jerked at her strike and narrowed her eyes at Donna a moment.  “I’m working on it.”  He then shifted his head to look at Rose, who by now had her head lowered to the ground.  He held out his arms to her.  “Rose.  C’mere.”

Rose looked up and stepped toward him without hesitation.  She took his hands in hers an d let her thumb run across his knuckles.  “You just listen to Donna, yeah, Doctor?  She seems like a smart lady.”

“Thank you,” Donna breathed gratefully.  “You see.  I keep tellin’ him that.”

Rose smirked.  “And she’ll keep you in line.”

“Remember when we were fighting against the Krillitanes, rose?”

Her brows immediately dropped into a frown of puzzlement.  “What does that have to do with right now, Doctor?”

“When we left the chippy and you decided to corner me about my companions and where you stood in regard to all of them.”

“Well,” she whined lightly with a tip of her head to one side.  “I wasn’t exactly asking my ranking…”

“But you pointed out how we were something,” he paused to take a breath.  “ _Different_.  Something _more._ ” He made a sound of chiding when she tried to pull back from him and snatched her closer to him.  “What did I say to you, Rose?  Do you remember?”

She frowned and dropped her forehead onto his chest.  Her words were slightly muted.  “That I could spend the rest of my life with you.”

“And…?”

“That you’d never be able to spend the rest of yours with me,” she answered with a sigh.  “Curse of the Time Lords and all that.”  She winced and raised her head.  “Not that I’m making light of it, mind.”

“I know, Rose,” he cooed with a press of his lips against her head.  “But with that said.  You know that my life will move centuries past yours.”

She burrowed deeper into his chest and nodded.  “I know.”

“Which means I have plenty of time to meet this River Song woman and do whatever running she says we do.”  He lifted her chin with the crook of his finger to raise her eyes to his.  “She says that I’m older, much older, when she saw me last.”  His head tipped down to one side and he let the side of his finger slide down her nose and over her lip.  “Plenty of time for me and you to live a full and amazing life together.”

Donna peeped in agreement.  “And plenty more years to get over you before then, too.”

“There will be _no_ getting over Rose, Donna,” the Doctor corrected flatly.  “For the rest of my lives I’ll have Rose Tyler ingrained in my soul.”  He nestled his cheek into her hair.  “My love.  My mate.  My hearts.  My soul.”


	10. Skinny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just ... more natter ...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is fast moving into crack fic territory, and I have absolutely no apologies for that at all. I am having a little bit of fun writing this, and it is taking out the sting when things happen in my day that don't make me smile too much.
> 
> It will end at some point... but for now ... I need the levity that comes with writing this. Here's today's post ... Anyone got any suggestions for what they want to see? That could be fun ... prompt me ... I'll pick one that makes me bounce excitedly in my seat.

_“There will be no getting over Rose, Donna,” the Doctor corrected flatly.  “For the rest of my lives I’ll have Rose Tyler ingrained in my soul.”  He nestled his cheek into her hair.  “My love.  My mate.  My hearts.  My soul.”_

“Because I haven’t already seen that,” Donna muttered with an eye roll.  “Bloody miserable pining alien.”  She then pointed to Rose with a sharp flick of her finger.  “So you’d better stop this whole _but the timelines, Doctor, we must preserve the timelines_ malarkey and come back to the other universe with us.”

“Well I haven’t been _that_ bad, Donna,” he defended with a pout.  “Time Lords do not pine.”

“Oh yes they do and you have,” she fired back.  “Rose this and Rose that and …” she put on a tearfully broken voice.  “ _Her name was Rose_.”

“Donna,” he pleaded in an embarrassed whisper.  “Please?”

“Really,” she continued.  “The universe doesn’t need a pouting Time Lord swanning about creating ways to off himself to stop the misery.”

“Oh now you’re just being ridiculous,” he growled.

“Go with me on this, Dumbo,” she snapped in return.  “You want Rose to come back, then she needs to know what you get reduced to when you’re not around.”

He lifted his head to the Vortex in the sky and inhaled a sigh.  “Carry on then.”

“It’s not like you could stop me anyway,” she gruffed in reply with a flick of her hand and movement of her eyes toward Rose.  “He needs you, Rose.”

Rose bit at her lip and nodded in short, slow movements.

Donna’s eyes flicked toward Jim, who had remained rather quiet throughout all this.  “And I suspect that you need him just as much, too.  Especially if you intend on rebuffing anyone who shows an interest.” Her eyes slid back to Rose, but she gestured toward Jim with a tip of her head.  “This one’s really not all that bad you know.  Better than this skinny streak of nothing who’d break if you tried to get frisky with him.”

“Oh, Donna, come on,” the Doctor growled impatiently.  He then huffed and looked down at himself as best he could with Rose Tyler held against his chest.  “My lithe form is essential for running.”

“Well…”

“Sprinters, I’ll have you know, aren’t bulked up Herculean beasts like the specimen to my right.”  He tipped his head in the direction of Jim.  “They actually have lean and well developed forms shaped appropriately for maximum thrust, speed and endurance.”

“Thrust and endurance,” Donna repeated slowly with a shift of a conspiratorial eye toward Rose.

“Yes,” the Doctor huffed.  “Carrying the extra weight that is possessed by a body builder would be rather detrimental to my … uh … way of living.”

“You mean continually running for your life.”

“Something like that, “ he acquiesced flatly.  “And just because I’m lithe…”

“Skinny,” she corrected.

“Fit,” he argued.  “And lean.  Doesn’t mean that I couldn’t possibly keep up and _break_ if my Rose Tyler thought to get _frisky_ with me.”  He gave her a smug smile.  “In fact, I believe that I possess far greater strength than even Hercules over there and would probably be capable of withstanding any or all…”

“Don’t give me the image,” Donna moaned dramatically as she covered her eyes with the back of her hand.  “We’ve talked about images today already.”

Rose shifted against the Doctor’s chest in a shudder that may well have been a chuckle.. “Oh, TARDIS must _love_ listening to you two bickering all the time.” She shook her head as she peeled herself from the Doctor’s hold and slid out sideways to escape his grasp when he reached for her.  “Poor old thing.”

“Which is precisely why you need to come back,” Donna half pleaded.  “TARDIS needs you.  She misses you…”

“Okay,” the Doctor interrupted with a snark.  “If you saying that _me_ missing her didn’t work, Donna, then I don’t think you saying the TARDIS does…”

“Okay,” Rose said with a cheeky smirk as she moved to stand beside Donna.  “I’ll come with.”

“Hold on,” the Doctor gasped.  “What?”

“She’s the last of her species, Doctor,” Rose said with all the concern of a protesting environmentalist.  “And if she needs me, then I’m there.”  She bumped her hip against Donna’s and winked.  “We girls have to stick together, don’t we?”

Donna’s brows lifted into her hairline.  “Oh.  Yes.  Yes!  You’re right.  TARDIS is a woman, she feels it.  Oh does she feel the soul shattering pain of loss.”

The Doctor knew he was being toyed with.  He could tell by the grins splitting the faces of the two women.  His eyes narrowed and he shifted a pointed finger in the air between them.  “This isn’t going to fly.”

Rose blinked innocently and smiled with her tongue caught cheekily in between her teeth.  Donna shrugged.

“What are you on about, Spaceman?”

“The two of you ganging up on me,” he answered flatly.  “Oh, but you think it’ll be all fun and games and playing about trying to tease the Time Lord…”

“Which Rose calls dibs on.”

“Indeed, Rose can…”  He gasped.  “No.  Just.  No.  No no no no no.  No.”  He rubbed at his brows tiredly with his fingers.  “If you two form an alliance then the TARDIS will definitely follow – Rassilon knows she’s already good enough with it on her own – and then I’m in a universe of trouble.”

“Well,” Rose sang with an innocent shrug in her shoulder.  “I can always just stay here, you know.  Live my life.  Telly.  Beans on toast.  Tea.  Sleep.  Work.”

Donna rushed him to lever a hearty slap on his shoulder.  “You big Dumbo!  All that convincing it took for Rose to agree to come back, and you mess it up with your little tantrum.”

“One,” he shot back quickly.  “That was not a tantrum.  In fact, that was about two solar systems away from a tantrum.  That was me,” he swallowed and lifted his brows.  “Taking a stand against the obvious budding alliance between three women against one man.”  He circled his finger in the air.  “And don’t think I am not aware of the potential of three women for nefarious deeds.” 

He looked to Rose and let a smug smile steal position above his chin.  “Now two: as for Rose backing out on her agreement to come back to me.”  He held out his hand and wriggled his fingers in invitation.  “Well.  To back out on that would break a promise, and my Rose Tyler is not the type of woman to break a vow, is she?”

Rose looked at his hand, but didn’t take it.  She folded her arms across her chest and dragged the tip of her tongue across her top lip.  “I didn’t promise to come back.”

“No,” he admitted quietly.  “But you did promise me forever, and me leaving you here really doesn’t add up to forever, now, does it?”  He pumped his fingers open and closed in a continuing request for her to take his hand.  “Not only that.  In agreeing to become my _mate_ , you vowed a foreverness…”

“Not a word, Doctor.”

“Donna,” he growled in warning.  “Give me a go, will you?  English is _not_ my first language, remember.”

“Well.  What _is_ your first language,” a voice grumbled in question from behind him.  “Because you seem to have a decent grasp of it.”

“TARDIS translation for the most part,” the Doctor answered with a turn on his heel to look toward the other male in the room.  “I can get by well enough without it if I have to I suppose.  Don’t let the Estuary drawl fool you, though, this isn’t my real accent.  My native tongue is fairly melodic, lyrical, with burrs and trills, and even sometimes an abrupt brogue with the accents and inflections.  That makes rounding out the English tones in the _British_ mother accent quite difficult.  My true accent might make me sound more like a Scotsman who’s been in America for far too long…”

“You’re Scottish,” Jim asked blandly.  “Yeah.  I can see where you think you don’t speak English.  Can’t understand a bloody word the Scot’s say.”

“Not Scottish,” the Doctor corrected.  “I’m from Gallifrey.”

“Ahh,” Jim breathed.  “Irish.  So you’re a bloody Celt, then?”

“If I was from Ireland,” the Doctor drawled with a moan and a shake of his head.  “Then I’d have an Irish accent, wouldn’t I?”  He thrust one hand into his trouser pockets and lifted the other one, palm up, in front of him in a lecturing-type gesture.  “Look.  You called me a – oh, what was it?”  His eyes lifted and his jaw lengthened.  “Oh that’s right, an Imaginary Martian Boyfriend.”

Jim glared at the Doctor with an unreadable expression, but said nothing.

So the Doctor continued.  “Which means that you already think I’m an off-worlder.”

Jim’s eyes flared and he immediately reached for his gun – a taser.  “You’re an alien!”

The Doctor’s brow arched.  “Yes,” he answered slowly as his eyes shifted to where Jim’s hand sat on his taser.  “I’m not from _this_ Earth.”

Jim held his taser up and carefully held it to aim with both hands.  “Then put up your hands,” he warned.  “You’re under arrest.”  His eyes flicked to Rose and Donna.  “Come stand with me ladies, I’ll protect you from the Martian invader.”

Rose shook her head.  “Jim.  Really?”

“Commander Tyler.  Behind me please.”

“Have you been asleep this whole time, Jim, because I think we’ve pretty much proven that the Doctor’s not a threat.”

The Doctor slid his other hand into his trouser pocket and rolled his eyes.  “Well.  Let’s not be too hasty about that, Rose.  I mean the guy did try to proposition you.”  His eyes darkly moved toward the large fellow with the taser.  “And, considering you attempted to move on the mate of a Time Lord…”

“Which means _what_ to me,” Jim snarled.

“Which means that you’re extraordinarily lucky that I’m a friendly sort and didn’t fall into my baser instincts of dropping you where you stand because you dared breathe the air surrounding my mate,” he strode a step forward and levered his head low to look through his brows at him.  “And trust me.  The Time Lords have a bit of a reputation when it comes to any marauding male that tries to proposition our mate.”

“Yeah,” Donna said with a deep chuckle.  “They go skulk off in a corner and pout for a millennia.”

“Oh we do not,” he snapped in reply.

“Tell me otherwise, Doctor.  Please.”

“I’d be lying if I did.”  The Doctor straightened up out of his light hunch and chuckled.  “Sometimes it scares me how well you know me and my people, Donna.”  He looked at her with a grin.  “Have you been looking at the books in the library on the TARDIS like I suggested?”

“It’s all in that circle scribble,” she huffed in reply with a wave of her hand.  “Looks like someone went to town with a spirograph.” 

“It’s the most complex and ancient language in the known universe,” he admonished with affront.  “How can you compare it to the … You know what?  Never mind.”  He huffed.  He looked back to Jim.  “Now do us all a favour, my good man, and drop the weapon.  No need for any of us to start shooting the other.”

“Yeah, Jim,” Rose urged softly.  “He’s not a threat.  He’s a friend and here at the invitation of the Board.”

“There haven’t been any notifications to the security teams, Commander.”

The Doctor scratched at his sideburn.  “Well.  That’s probably because I’m a bit late to the party.”  He looked to Rose.  “How long.  One?  Two years?”

“Four,” she answered sadly.

His breath escaped him in a sympathetic sound and he let her name whisper past her lips as he moved quickly toward her, both arms open in a request for her to fall into them.

“Stop where you are,” Jim demanded.  “Until I have verification from the security office that you are here on a legitimate invitational request, I’m going to hold you.”

The Doctor ignored him completely and continued toward Rose.

Jim called out again for the Doctor to stop in a sharp and booming demand.

There was a pop, and then a sizzling crackle.  And then the thump of a thrashing body on the ground.


	11. Tased

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim goes down for the count ... so who won the pool?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh holy awesome reviews and comments batman! So glad I've captured you in this...
> 
> Took a detour from the light to head back into the shadows a moment. The outcry over the possibility of the Doctor still ending up with River *cough*MarySue*cough* Song means that I had to get a little creative ... just a weenie bit.
> 
> I hope this detour is more well received. :)

_The Doctor ignored him completely and continued toward Rose._

_Jim called out again for the Doctor to stop in a sharp and booming demand._

_There was a pop, and then a sizzling crackle.  And then the thump of a thrashing body on the ground._

The Doctor looked at the man on the floor writhing an involuntary dance of shaking limbs and gritted teeth with a brow arched high into his hairline.  He lifted his eyes to the doorway and exhaled a breath of discovery.  That breath them formed a smile that immediately widened into a thrilled grin.

“Mickey!”

Mickey let one side of his mouth curl into a smirk at the rather long extension the Doctor used in his name and held a finger up in a request for him to wait one minute.  He then drew back that finger to depress the button on a walkie mike attached to his vest.

“Rejection by Taser,” he announced humourously.  “Who’s got that, then?”

A voice crackled over the speaker by his ear.  “ _Depends, Mickey.  Taser by Tyler_?”

“Smith,” Mickey answered with a chuckle and a wink toward Rose.

“ _Okay, Taser by Smith._ ”  There was a pause and then a growl.  “ _I’m going to call this an invalid bet.  You can’t bet on yourself, man._ ”

“Then my bet shouldn’t have been accepted, yeah?”

“ _Yeah, well.  Let us work out the_ legalities _of your act, yeah?  If it’s not a true strike then the kitty starts over._ ”

“I’ll send you a detailed report plus security footage,” Mickey replied with a laugh.  “He was about to hit the Doctor, and I reckon castration and decapitation by Tyler would’ve won out if I didn’t make the hit.”

“ _I hate you, Smith.  That was_ my _bet_.”

“Sucks to be you then, don’t it?  Smith out.”  He was chuckling to himself with a guffaw of self-pride when he released the walkie mic and let his hands fall to his sides.  He rolled his eyes when he saw Rose, who stood with her arms folded tightly across her chest and her jaw set tight.

“You lot had bets on?” she snarled darkly in question.  “Bets.  On just how Jim was going to be rejected _this_ time around?”

The Doctor looked aghast by that.  “You mean this is a common thing for you Rose?”  He pointed to the ground, where Jim lay in a semi-consciousness and groaning heap.  “Gigantic thugs trying their all to take you as their mate?”

“I think wanting _to_ mate is more accurate than wanting to _become_ her mate,” Mickey answered with a shrug as he walked toward the Time Lord.   He held out his hand off slightly to one side and then swung it toward the Doctor to slap and then shake hands.  “Hello, Boss.  I heard you’d stopped by.  Damn well took your time in doing so.”

“Well,” he drawled on a long breath as he scratched at his right sideburn.  “Dimensional travel, there’s a few hurdles to jump over before it can be done safely.”

“Tell me about it,” Mickey muttered as he gave a firm tug of the wires of his device to pull them from Jim’s shoulder.  He let out a breath as he wrapped them around the muzzle of the weapon.  “Not to mention the lack of navigation on a canon pad.  A shot’ll drop you anywhere.  Good thing she still had the key to that TARDIS of yours, Doctor.  Once we added that to the matrix, we could at least be sure she’d land close to the old girl.”

The Doctor’s brows fell hard to hood over his eyes.  “Hold on, what?”

“First few jumps, Rose,” he said with slight humour in his voice to shield the concern.  “Remember those?”

Rose shuddered and winced as she held onto herself.  “I’d rather not, taa.”

The Doctor passed a look of concern toward Rose.  His voice was soft, but firm.  “How many jumps, did you make before you found me, Rose?”

She looked up at him and inhaled a deep breath to steady herself against his steeled look.  “It doesn’t matter,” she answered him with a steady voice. 

“It matters to me,” he said on a low voice.  “How many times did you jump before you found me?”

She looked away from him rather than answer.  Her eyes fell on Mikey and she found the way to change the topic of conversation.  “So, Mickey.  Betting on my discomfort were we?” 

He recognised the tone of voice she was using.  She was deflecting.  Rose didn’t want to answer the Doctor’s question, and truthfully, he didn’t blame her.  The first few jumps hadn’t gone well.  That was why they time limited each and every one of her jumps and made sure that she was drawn back to this side of the parallel wall.

…Which rather spectacularly negated the whole point of the jumps, which was to find the Doctor.

…Then again.   He was here, wasn’t he?

With that thought, Mickey looked to the man himself.  “Just how did you make it here, Boss?”

The Doctor shifted his gaze from Rose to Mickey.  “Pardon me?”

“Well,” he continued with a shrug.  “S’been four years.  Rose’s been leaping now for almost two of those.”  He paused a moment when the Doctor’s face fell into horror and he looked apologetically toward Rose.  Before the Doctor could speak, however, he continued.  “The last jump was the first one that she managed to find you quickly enough to actually talk to you.”

The Doctor seemed to have fallen deaf to Mickey’s words beyond the mention of the jump timeline.  “Two years, Rose?”

Rose shrugged.  “That timeframe probably suggests that I did a lot more jumps than I actually did, Doctor,” she replied softly.  “Truthfully, it was only about twenty or so actual leaps.  We really cant..”

“Twenty?” he barked.

“Give or take,” she muttered dismissively.  “Can’t really do much more than that.  It takes time to reset the cannon parameters and log all of the necessary….”

“That’s twenty times through the void, Rose!”

“Well, fourty,” she corrected.  “Counting the return jumps.”

He held out his hand with a firm flick of his fingers.  “Come with me to the TARDIS,” he ordered sharply.  “There’s no telling what that constant exposure to the void has done to you.  I need to run some tests – lots of tests -  make sure that your jumps haven’t done any detriment to your physiology.”

“Not likely,” Mickey muttered under his breath.  “Not given that she’s-”

Rose hissed his name in warning, which stopped Mickey in his tracks.

The Doctor noted the exchange with suspicious eyes.  “Mickey, please go on.”

“Best not, Boss,” he muttered with a duck of his head to duck underneath Rose’s glare. “Don’t much need to be on the receiving end of a Tyler-Slap, taa.”  He kept his head low and pointed at Rose.  “Obviously you haven’t told him, yet.”

“Told me _what_?”

“That my friendship with Mickey Smith is teetering me on the edge of homicidal tendencies,” Rose growled with her eyes flared and locked on the man in question.  Her glare suddenly softened and she inhaled a deep and cleansing breath to look upon the Doctor with a smile.  “Other than that, there isn’t anything else that I need to tell you.”

The Doctor’s eyes hardened just slightly.  “I don’t like being lied to.”

She shook her head.  “I’m not lying, Doctor.”

“Omission is just as good as lying, Rose,” he replied in a voice that didn’t even try to shield the hurt.  “What’s going on?”  His eyes chased hers as she tried to look everywhere but at him.  “Tell me,” he pleaded softly. 

Rose forced a smile and pressed her hands against his hearts, petting with light pats of her palms against his chest.  She stared at the backs of her hands rather than at his face.  “It’s nothing.  Just.  The jumps.  They weren’t pleasant, Doctor.  I really don’t want to have to relive them, okay?”  She exhaled, swallowed, and then drew in a deep breath.  “The most important thing is that we’re here, now, and that you want me to come back, yeah?”   She blinked and finally lifted her eyes to his.  “You _do_ still want me to come with you, yeah?”

“Yeah,” he replied in a breathy voice.  He let his arms slide around her hips and lightly coaxed her to step closer into him.  “I do.”

“Then that’s what’s important, yeah?”  The centre of her brow creased.  “Not what got us to this point.”

He nodded and pulled her into his chest.  “Yeah.”  He dropped his lips into her hair when she nestled against his chest.  “Yeah.”

Donna, who had been strangely quiet, finally spoke up from the ground at their feet.  “So.  Is this guy gonna be okay, then?”

The Doctor snapped away from Rose and fell into a crouch beside Donna.  He poked at Jim’s shoulder.  “Looks like a typical physiological response to a concentrated electrical charge.”  He looked up to Mickey, who had walked around them to stand beside Rose.  “What kind of impact did he receive?”

Mickey looked at the now dead weapon in his hand.  HE checked the manufacturer’s label and shrugged.  “Twelve hundred volts it says here.”

The Doctor nodded and looked down at Jim and then back to Donna.  “I would assume that a body mass like his would withstand taser hit better than the average bloke would.”  He looked back to Jim.  “I know that I’m perfectly capable of handling that and more – skin and bones and all…”

“Don’t you go on about your superior biology to me, mate,” Donna threatened sharply.

Rose watched as the pair engaged in another round of friendly argument and had to smile with the knowledge that the Doctor was being very well taken care of in her absence.  Mickey’s voice in her ear made her gasp lightly, but she let her eyes and face shift so that she looked across her cheek at him.  “What?”

“You’re going to have to tell him, Rose.”

Rose hissed out a quick and harsh sound that demanded he lower the volume of his voice.  “Mickey!”

“He’s going to figure it out, you know.”  He cleared his throat and gestured toward the Time Lord on the ground.  His voice was little more than a harsh whisper.  “And he’ll be slightly more than upset and oncoming storm with you when he does.”

“Only if I chose to go back with him, Micks.”

He snorted wetly through his nose, hard enough to need to wipe at it.  “Of course you’re going with him.”  He turned his head fully toward her.  “The whole reason for this project was to get you back to him.  So that you and him could have your damn forever and …”

“Well.  That’s changed,” she hissed.

“Since when?”

“Since me returning will rewrite his entire future timeline.”  She flicked her hair over her shoulder and sniffed hard.  “However far that woman is supposed to be in his future …”

“Is still too close.”

Rose nodded.  “If I’ve learned anything from the Doctor,” she sighed.  “It’s that timelines have to be preserved.”

“Or rewritten,” Mickey ventured.  He flicked up a finger before she could argue that.  “I love you, Rose.  Always have.  But this stubborn bullheaded streak of yours drives me barmy.”

“Micks…”

“We both know when he finds out that there’ll be no power in any of the universes that will stop him from taking you back to where you belong.”  He looked to the Doctor who was in mid lecture with Donna.  “Which we both know is with him.”

“Which is why he can’t know,” Rose admitted.  “Because if that becomes the _only_ reason…”

“Don’t be so daft.”  He rolled his eyes.  “The fact he’s here at all means he wants you even without knowing.”  He wriggled his fingers to thread his through hers.  “He loves you.  I saw it then, I see it now.”

“I know,” she whimpered.

“Then tell him.”

“I can’t.”

“If you don’t, then I will,” he threatened darkly.  “You’ve been miserable these past four years without him.  I can’t imagine you suffering that for the rest of your life because you gave up the chance.”  He squeezed her hand.  “Let him decide _with_ you.  Don’t decide this _for_ him.”


	12. Confusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor doesn't quite get it, and Rose isn't being entirely upfront.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know ... four days between posts! 
> 
> Sorry. Took a break for a few days because it was a long weekend here in Ontario, and long weekends are like mini-vacations ... LAZY!!
> 
> But I am back now ... and I shall get back to it....
> 
> I honestly don't think there's much to go here. I mean it's almost there... but every time I say something like that, I keep going. So I'll just play it by ear and let it finish when it finishes.
> 
> Enjoy!

The millennia-aged time ship hummed steadily as she worked through her systems analysis and prepared for another trip through the void and back to the prime universe.  Ordinarily she’d be right indignant and annoyed at her pilot for forcing a flight through dimensional walls.  Ordinarily she would have sparked and spluttered, complained and whined, snapped at and singed her Thief’s hands for inputting the journey coordinates…

…But she couldn’t.  

For the myriad of things that could’ve gone awry by passing through the walls of the universe, the one potential _right_ was worth every single one of the wrongs.

…Or maybe not.  

The two men in white lab coats that were walking her exterior, poking, prodding, and waving archaic scanning equipment at her, which did nothing more than mess up her own sensors, were definitely high on the list of Cons on the clipboard of “Should we be _Crossing Time lines to Find Rose Tyler?_ ”

She followed their movements with her telepathic eye, narrowed with indignant judgement – one scientific fool to another – but didn’t do anything that would alert them to her sentience.  Well, at least not until one of them walked back to his desk and noisily opened a drawer to retrieve a very familiar looking object.

TARDIS gave a shuddering huff that rattled her doors.

“Woah,” Calypse gasped excitedly as he took a long stride backward.  “Wilson.  Did you see that?”

“If this thing was a car,” Wilson muttered with a shrug of disinterest, “then I’d say the old girl was about to stall out.”

“But it’s a Time Ship,” Calypse said in the TARDIS’ defence.

“So?” Wilson called back.  “Doesn’t matter if it’s got tyres, tits, or a flux capacitor, it’s still a temperamental woman and you’re still going to have problems with it.”

Pete snorted from where he sat in front of a computer monitor.  “If there was ever a question as to why you’re not married, Wilson, you just answered it.”

“The question has been asked, Director,” Wilson shot back with amusement.  “Many times, actually.” 

“If it’s been asked _that_ many times, Wilson,” Pete challenged with a chuckle.  “Then you’re not answering the question properly.”

“I answer with enigmatic responses,” he purred to himself as he approached the TARDIS with a Yale key in hand.  “To keep them guessing.”

Calypse rolled his eyes with a grunt.  “Yeah, that in and of itself is answer enough, you daft sod.  It’s the women who are supposed to be the mysterious ones, not the blokes.”

“I agree with Calypse on that one,” Pete said with a chuckle.  “Women don’t tend to trust guys who are _enigmatic_.  Reckon you’ve got something hidden up your sleeve or something.”

“I’m a scientist,” Wilson answered with a shrug.  “Got more things up my sleeve than Kim Kardashian’s had up her-“

“Don’t even think about finishing that line,” Pete growled quickly.  “There are some images that no man ever wants to see.”  He shuddered. 

“And yet so many have,” Wilson said with a chuckle. 

Calypse held out his hand for the key.  “Don’t go about believin’ everything you read in the rags, Wil.  “Lord only knows they’ve printed some pretty nasty trash about our Rose that we all know isn’t at all true.”  He rubbed at his chin.  “At last count, they’ve put her at seventeen sexual-“

“That’s my _daughter_ you’re speaking about, Calypse,” Pete growled.  “So you’d best be watching what you say from here.”

“She’s a delightful, brilliant woman,” Calypse returned with a smirk.  “You should be proud.”

“And I am.”  Pete paused as he watched the key get passed between Wilson and Calypse.  “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Taking a look inside,” Wilson answered with a roll in his eyes and a shake of his head.  “What else?”

“I wouldn’t go about breaking into the Doctor’s TARDIS,” Pete warned.  “

Calypse held up the key.  “Not breaking in when you have a key handy.”

“Not the point,” Pete argued.  He held out his hand in request for the key.  “Now hand over Rose’s key.”

Wilson’s entire posture dropped.  He looked much like a two-year old child who was being denied his binkie.  “But, I want to see.”

“Then wait for The Doctor.”

“But…”

Pete shook his head.  He was amused.  “Pout all you want, Wilson.  The answer is no.  The Doctor doesn’t like it when people touch his things and I don’t want to be the man who allowed his things to get played with.”

Wilson jutted a finger harshly toward him.  “You are no fun at all, you know that?”

“The answer to that question depends entirely on who you ask.”

Calypse rubbed at his jaw.  “Do you think the Doctor would talk to us about about this ship, Pete?  I mean…”  He paused to look around the corner.  “I mean, inquiring minds want to know just how he’s managed to fit the necessary engines, fuel storage and equipment in a box so small.”

“Transdimensional engineering,” the Doctor bleated with a grin as he entered the lab through a side door left open to vent the residual energies of his TARDIS.  “The TARDIS exists in a dimension of her own…”

“Then how does your ship exist in _this_ dimension,” Wilson queried with high brows.

“Oh but that’s a good question,” the Doctor sang with a smile.  He looked toward Rose with a smile spread across his cheeks.  “A very good question, indeed.”

“A very good question, Doctor,” she agreed with a tongue-touched smile.

Wilson waited for the Doctor to elaborate and clarify.  He held his breath and looked to the Time Lord with expectant eyes and kept on waiting.

Finally, after what felt like an hour – but was only about a minute – Wilson huffed.  “Well, Doc?”

The Doctor twisted his head to look toward the young scientist.  “Well, _what_?”  His brows fell and came together in a light frown.  “And please.  Don’t’ call me Doc.  I hate that name.  Doc.”  He thrust his hands into his pockets to draw himself into a light slouch.  “Doc doc doc doc.  Sounds like a chicken trying to get your attention, doesn’t it?”  He made the sound again a few times with an expression of pure disgust.  “Well.  Earth based chickens anyway.  Now the chickens on Peorrhl, they make an entirely different sound, that lot.  More like the sound of a chainsaw being started, which is a rather terrifying sound come to think of it.”  He inhaled deeply and let his eyes flare as he imagined a chainsaw-chicken-cluck, and then shook his head.  “But anyway. Off that.  Rather discomforting image I have right now.”

“Then I got a better topic,” Wilson offered with an annoyed huff.

The Doctor ignored the huff and shot the young scientist an eager look.  “And what’s that, then?”

“Transdimensional Engineering.”

The Doctor pursed his lips and looked toward Pete before sliding his eyes back to Wilson.  “Well.  That could take some time.  How long do you have?”

“As long as it takes.”  He grinned a smile of challenge.  “I’ve never heard the term Transdimansional Engineering before.  I’m curious as to what it is.

“Well,” he drawled long.  He tugged at his ear and kicked at the floor as he walked a lazy circle.  “I dare say you shouldn’t have heard of it before.  It’s not a technology that Humans ever really manage to perfect.  Oh, but they try.  Of course they do.  It’s what human do, isn’t it; Try?”  He paused to offer Wilson a toothy smile and wait for him to agree.  Wilson didn’t, so the Doctor continued.  “Anyway.  It’s not something that I can really explain to you in a few minutes.  Well, not unless you really want me to completely insult your intelligence and dumb it down completely.”

“I really am on board for that,” Wilson offered.  “Dumb it down completely for me.”

“Yeah,” the Doctor muttered with a scratch at his right sideburn and a look toward his TARDIS.  “That still could take a while.”  He kept scratching at his sideburn as his head tilted deeply to one side.  “A very, very, long time.”

“And the Doctor doesn’t really have too much time left here,” Rose offered with an apologetic smile.  “He’s got to be dematerializing across dimensional walls to get his brilliant time ship back home.”

“Yes, of course,” the Doctor agreed cheerily. He slapped at the wooden corner of his ship.  “This old thing, bless her.  It took all she had to get us through the void and on this side of the wall.”

“Then you best think about getting back and setting her up in Cardiff for a bit to recharge herself a little,” Rose urged with a gesture of her head toward the doors of the TARDIS.  “She’s a good girl, TARDIS.  Treat her good, yeah?”

His whole face fell at her words.  He seemed almost annoyed when he pressed one hand onto the side of his ship and leaned heavily on it with a straightened arm.  “I take it that means you aren’t coming with me.”

Spoken as fact and with a light growl in the undercurrent of his voice, and Rose knew he was upset.  She offered him a smile as she walked toward him.  Her breath escaped her with a soft whoosh as she clutched at his tie with both hands and nestled her forehead into his chest in such a way that she had her chin pressed into her own chest.

“It’s for the best,” she whispered sadly.

“Best for whom?” he queried as he relaxed his rigid form and folded himself around her.

“For time,” she clarified softly.  “For you.  For your future wife.”

He let out an immediate growl and roughly shoved himself backward.  He wasn’t particularly gentle when he grabbed at her upper arms to hold her firm in front of him.  “Forget about River Song,” he growled.  “If she’s _my_ future, then it’s going to be in a long, long, long time from now.”  He let out a breath.  “Long after we’ve had our life together and long after I’ve mourned you, Rose.”

“But…”

“But _nothing_ ,” he snapped angrily as he released her arms and stalked backward three strides.  “Look.  If you don’t want _us_ , Rose, then just say it.”  He gestured between the two of them and waved his hand and shook his head.  “I don’t want to hear excuses about how it’ll affect our timelines, or whether or not River Song and I end up married in the future – and I have to be perfectly frank with you on that, Rose.  She is the exact opposite of what I would call my idea partner, and so marriage?  I can’t see it…”

“But…”

“Oh, perhaps if the whole universe was about to be destroyed and the only way to save it was to marry her, then probably.”  He shrugged.  “But I’d pretty much marry anyone if it came down to that, wouldn’t I?”  He forced a grin.  “Not like I don’t have a marriage or two under the belt that were undertaken for political reasons, right?”  His smile fell and his look hardened.  “I’m not going to live the rest of this life and incarnations making decisions based upon whether or not that _woman_ is supposed to end up as my wife.”  He flicked his hand toward her.  “Not when the one I actually want as my wife is standing right in front of me.”

Pete let up a bit of a holler to that.   “Father of the _bride_ over here, Doctor.  You might want to check in with me before you go about making any grandiose wedding proposal plans over there.”

The Doctor let out a breath and looked toward Pete.  “My intentions with your daughter are, and always have been honourable.  I’m a Time Lord, we don’t travel and shag about all of time and space.”  He shifted his attention back to Rose.  “I thought that you felt the same way about me that I did for you.  Obviously I was wrong.”

Rose’s response was barely a whisper when she replied to him. 

“You don’t understand.”

“No,” he practically snarled in response, obviously hurt.  “I guess I don’t.”  He swallowed a lump and shook his head as he let his eyes drift to the TARDIS.  His voice was soft, but still clearly hurt.  “I suppose that I can be forgiven for misreading your intentions, Rose Tyler.   I mean I took your leaping from parallel to parallel to find me as an indicator that you wanted us to live _your_ forever together.”

“I did,” she murmured softly.  “I still do.”

The Doctor frowned in confusion.  He looked at Rose, then Wilson, then at Calypse, then to Donna, Micky and Pete.  “Then what…”  He looked back to Rose.  “Then what’s holding you back, Rose?”

She swallowed hard, with an open mouth as she battled to inhale through a stuffy nose.  “Doctor, please.”

“If I leave,” he warned her with a snap of a finger toward the TARDIS.  “If I take off right now, then I’m never coming back.  There’s no third chances, Rose.  None.  Once I’m gone, then I’m gone.”  He dropped his hand to his side.  “I’m going to close the breach behind me and seal off this universe forever.”

“P-Perhaps that’s for the best,” she stammered sadly.  “To maintain the t-time lines.”

“Fuck the timelines,” he growled loud enough to startle every man in the room.  “I’m a Time Lord, and I’ve sacrificed enough to preserve the lines that Time wants to keep.  No more.  This go around Time can give me what _I_ want for a change.”

Calypse reached for the swear jar, Pete put his hand on top of it to prevent Calypse from being decapitated by the hot stare of a pissed off Time Lord. 

“Doctor,” Pete called with authority.  “Look at me, Lad.”

The Doctor slowly turned to Pete with a look of absolute indignance.  “Did you just call me _Lad_?”  He poked his finger into the space between his hearts.  “I’m a 900-year old Time Lord…”

“Who’s behaving more like a petulant twenty year old.”  He shot a glare toward Rose when she dared chuckle.  “And don’t you act the snicker-puss, Rose Tyler.  I’m going to guess that the reason for the Doctor’s utter confusion right now is the fact that you haven’t been entirely honest with him and therefore he doesn’t understand just what new level of commitment he’s setting himself up for here.”

“Well,” the Doctor drawled.  “My confusion is largely due in part to the contradicting-“ he stopped with a peep as Pete Tyler flicked up a finger in a warning for him to stop.

“Oh.  I understand your confusion, Doctor,” Pete assured him.  “You’re dealing with a _Prentice_ , The single most confusing line of women in the known universe.”  He ticked his head to one side.  “They’re easy to fall in love with and are more passionate than any woman you will ever meet.”

“Your point?” the Doctor groused sullenly.

Pete flicked a glare of warning toward the Doctor.  “Let me finish.”

“Go ahead.”

“Passionate and confusing they may be,” he began.  “They’re also the kind of self-sacrificing sorts who make the most insane and idiotic decisions based upon what _they_ think is for the greater good of all mankind.”

Rose let out a gruff.  “Oh come on.”

“Tell me otherwise, Rose,” Pete challenged.  “Tell me that you’re not making this asinine decision to break his heart and force him to leave you…”

“Hearts,” the Doctor corrected.  “As in plural.  Two, in fact.”

“You have two hearts?”

The Doctor nodded.  “Two hearts for her to break.”

“Well,” Pete said with surprise.  “Two.  That’s … what else do you have _two_ of?”

“Dad!”

Pete raised his hand in apology.  “Sorry, Rose-bud.”  He ignored her moan of detest at the pet name.  “As I was saying.  Your decision to end the canon project and end your relationship with the Doctor is misguided and foolish.”

“How _dare_ you.”

“Oh,” Pete huffed.  “I _dare_ do it, sweetheart.  And I refuse to take it back unless you assure me – the both of you – that this decision to part ways is mutually decided with all of the facts laid out on the table.”  At Rose’s hard intake of breath he short a look toward her and narrowed his gaze into a glare of warning.  “Have you told him _everything_ , Rose?”  He inhaled and lowered his voice to a low rumble.  “And I mean _everything._ ”

Rose looked off to one side, but didn’t answer.

“That’s what I thought,” he said with a grunt.  “And you’re just gonna let him go without explanation.”

The Doctor raised both hands and looked between father and daughter with a worried expression.  “What’s going on here?”

“Are you going to explain it to him, Rose,” Pete warned firmly.  “Or am I?”  He watched her inhale deeply and snort her exhales heavily through her nose.  “He’s as good as responsible for it, Rose.  He needs to know.”

“It was _my_ decision,” she seethed through her teeth.   “The Doctor had nothing to do with it.”

“He had _everything_ to do with it, Rose,” Pete countered hotly.  “You wouldn’t have looked into the heart of the TARDIS and seen into Time itself if it wasn’t for him, so don’t shield him from this.”

The Doctor’s face widened in worry.  His eyes implored Rose to explain.  “What about the Time Vortex, Rose?”  He watched a tear roll down her cheek and fought every instinct within him to seize her into his arms and hold her against his chest.  Instead, he softened his voice to a low sound of support and urging.  “Tell me, Rose.”

Rose lowered her head and wetly breathed a couple of staggered breaths to steady herself.  Once she felt she was adequately composed, she lifted her head to look at him.  “Your timelines, Doctor.  They include River Song – as your wife.”

“You can see my timeline?” he queried with a furrowed brow.

Rose shook her head.  “No.”

“Then how can you tell me where my timeline is leading?”

Rose snorted a laugh.  “Because she told me as much.”  She looked him up and down and then settled her despairing expression toward his eyes.  “She’s your wife.  You love her.  I’m not there, at all.”

“That could be centuries from now, Rose,” he pushed out.  “A millennium, even.”

“So?” Rose challenged lightly.  “So what if it is that far away?  She’s still your wife, and that’s a timeline that has to be preserved.”

“One,” the Doctor said with a huff.  “Her _saying_ she’s my wife means very little without any tangible proof – of which she really provided none.”  He thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and rocked back on his heels.  “B, no, Two:  You’re a human with a human lifespan.  At most you and I will have six or seven decades together.  I’m a Time Lord.  I’ll live centuries beyond that.”

Rose bit at her lips and inhaled deeply.

“That means, Rose Tyler,” the Doctor continued.  “That you and I can live a full and amazing human life together without ever having to worry about-”

“I’m going to live longer than that,” she blurted suddenly.  “Much.  Much longer.”

With the exception of a brow climbing high on his forehead, the Doctor froze in place.  “What?”

Rose swallowed and then inhaled deeply, enough that she felt momentarily light headed.  “My forever is going to be a lot longer than six or seven decades, Doctor.”  She shifted her eyes to his.  “More like Six or seven centuries.”

Wilson coughed into his fist.  Calypse made a small sound of disagreement.  “Actually, Rose.  Based on the current degredation of your neurological cells you could be looking at about double that – provided you stop getting yourself into situations that-“

“Hold on,” the Doctor injected sharply.  “What?”

“My forever,” Rose answered him.  “Is equivalent to yours, now.”

He looked absolutely perplexed, like a young boy confused by the math problem of the week at school.  “What?”

She held out her hand to him.  “The TARDIS looked into me, Doctor as much as I looked into her.”

He looked at her hand.  “And..?”

She stepped forward and snatched his hand.  She clutched onto it tightly and led him toward the TARDIS doors.  “Come with me, Doctor.”

He tugged on her hand to pull her toward him.  He held their joined hands at his hip, angled to his rear, and hooked his other hand around her jaw and into her hair.  “Only if you’ll come with me,” he vowed fiercely.

“If you’ll still want me,” she breathed against his chin.  “Then I’ll come with you.”  She felt the touch of his lips against hers as he sought a connection, but managed to keep him at bay just enough to hold herself firm.  “First things first, though, Doctor.”

“What?” he questioned huskily.  “What do we do first?”

She managed to step back fully from him.  “Tests,” she said softly.  “I know that you’re not going to believe a single one of the trest results that Torchwood has.”

He pursed his lips in disgust and shook his head.  “No.  You’re right about that.  If you’re claiming a lifespan equivalent to a Gallifreyan, then I’m the _only_ person in the multiverse even remotely qualified to test and interpret the results.”

She nodded.   “That’s what I thought.”  She tugged him toward the TARDIS doors, which were opening on their own behind her.  “So let’s start, yeah, and then we can talk about the possible rupture to your time line if you want to pursue...”

“I will pursue, Rose,” the Doctor assured her.  “Because if what you’re saying is true, I’m not leaving you to suffer a Time Lord’s curse alone.”


	13. Examination

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose and the Doctor finally get a moment alone to talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a long chapter. I dunno what happened. I just started and it kept going. 
> 
> I make no apologies for what's contained in this section. I'm more than happily prepared to write River Song out completely ... in fact I'm all out ready to write a whole series where we pull a Dallas and have Ten wake up from an horrific nightmare where the whole of Moffat's reign was just a dream...
> 
> Just kidding. I've gotto get through this one first and then I have another two stories to finish.... HAHA!
> 
> Thank you for all of your truly awesome comments. You guys keep a gal happy and inspired and wanting to keep writing. Got lots of comments on the last chapter, and look what happened!! a 5.5K word chapter!!! Whoot whoot.

_She nodded.   “That’s what I thought.”  She tugged him toward the TARDIS doors, which were opening on their own behind her.  “So let’s start, yeah, and then we can talk about the possible rupture to your time line if you want to pursue...”_

_“I will pursue, Rose,” the Doctor assured her.  “Because if what you’re saying is true, I’m not leaving you to suffer a Time Lord’s curse alone.”_

Rose nodded as they walked toward the waiting time ship.  “As long as that’s not the _only_ reason.”

“And there’s a comment that doesn’t deserve the dignity of a response,” he muttered under his breath.

Rose stopped their stride and looked up to him with a small amount of challenge in her eye. 

He cut her off before she could open her mouth to respond.

“I’m _here_ , aren’t I?”  He let out a breath and looked at the TARDIS doors.  “I crossed the void in search of you to bring you back to the prime universe – as my mate - all _before_ hearing the bomb that you just dropped on me.”

“And now that you know…”  She resumed her walk to the TARDIS.  “Does that change things for you?”

“You hope that I’m going to tell you that _no, it doesn’t_ , Rose,” he began slowly.  “But I can’t, can I?  We both know that this changes things rather drastically.”  When he felt the shudder in her hand and the way that it clutched a little tighter at his, he leaned down to her.  “For the better,” he clarified firmly.  “We’ll discuss this further inside the TARDIS.”

Rose bit at her lip and nodded.  Her held breath blew out of her when she felt the comforting rub of his thumb across hers.  He paused in his stride and released her hand to allow her to enter the TARDIS ahead of him.  He touched the palm of his hand to her lower back and followed very closely behind her.

Rose barely made it half way up the ramp to the console before she was thrown into a backward stumble by the most intense of sensations.  It was a mental wash, a bathing squeal of emotions that plummeted against her chest like an excited hug between reuniting friends.  She managed to stay steady for a short moment, but the intensity of the sensation finally threw her back into the Doctor’s chest.  He held her firm against his chest and chuckled a low and throaty sound against her ear.  “I got you.”

“D-did I..” Rose spluttered.  “Did she, I mean TARDIS, just…”  she swallowed and looked up at him with an expression of complete puzzlement.  “Did she just _hug_ me?”

“Looks like she’s happy to see you,” he mused with unhidden admiration as he tightened his hold around her waist.  “Almost as happy as I am.”  His brows lifted and he looked to the pulsing light in the rotor column.  “You’ve never done that before, have you, old girl?”

Rose kept her eyes on the rotor column, but tilted her head back to direct her words quietly toward the man behind her.  “Do I hug her back?”  She frowned a perplexed furrow in her brow.  “How do I even do that?”

He chuckled against her ear.  “There’re support columns everywhere in here.  Take your pick.”

Rose wriggled free of his hold and shook her head as she walked up to the console and pressed her hands into the surface as leverage for her to maintain her balance as she lifted up onto her toes.  “I’ve missed you too, TARDIS,” she cooed with a smile as she leaned forward to press a kiss against the column.  “More than you could possibly comprehend.”

“Oh I don’t know about that,” the Doctor mused as he strode past her with his hands firmly inside his trouser pockets and a wink in his eye.  “Telepathic _and_ empathic,” he reminded her with a gesture of his chin toward the column.  “She can read your emotions well enough.”

“As long as you aren’t reading my thoughts,” Rose warned with amusement.  Her eyes widened in time with a smile that hinted at slight embarrassment.  “Because, well.  Some thoughts are better kept to myself, yeah?”

That made the Doctor throw his head backward in a laugh.  His knees dipped and then straightened to throw himself forward slightly.  “Oh that would _definitely_ explain a few things.”

Rose looked momentarily horrified.  “Like _what_?”

The Doctor took her hand and shook his head.  “Never you mind.  Now.  To the infirmary?”  He looked back to the machine.  “Looks like you’ve done some TARDIS-style jiggery pokery on my Rose Tyler, old girl.  Time to find out just how much.”

IF the TARDIS was in any way apologetic for what she’d done, she certainly didn’t show it.  She merely opened the door that led to the med bay and extended a telepathic hand to show them the way.  Neither Rose or the Doctor were surprised to see that the room they sought was the first door to the left immediately beyond the console room doors.

Once again, the Doctor allowed Rose to enter the room ahead of him with his guiding hand placed on her lower back.

“Up on the gurney,” he instructed with a smile as he let his jacket slide off his back and arms and tossed it haphazardly on the nearest item – an uncomfortable looking aluminum and plastic chair against the wall. 

“Do I need to get my kit off?”

The Doctor stilled briefly with her question, but quickly shook himself free of whatever thoughts had entered his mind.  “Perhaps just your jacket,” he managed with a tiny gravelled voice.  “I just need a couple of samples, nothing invasive.  You can keep your clothes on.”

Rose let out a dramatic sigh as she shrugged off her leather jacket that felt like it had suddenly tightened.  Her voice was slightly strained, but full of amusement.  “Always wasting the opportunities you get to get me naked…”

The Doctor peeped, coughed, and then cleared his throat as he attempted to put on his most non-affected expression.  “Nakedness is much better left for the bedroom – I mean bathroom, yeah?  When you bathe or take a shower, I mean.”

Rose chuckled.

The Doctor steadied himself by pulling out the necessary equipment.  “Just what kind of examinations have you endured that involved you having to get naked, Rose Tyler?”

Her expression fell and her cheeks pinkened as she considered a couple of necessary exams requiring various forms of nakedness.  “Oh, uh…”

“None,” he remarked with a frown as he analysed and counted the array of items he had set onto a small stainless steel tray.  “There’s no need for it,” he continued.  “Not when a simple blood test and DNA analysis can give you the answers you need.”

“Well,” she sang in response with a roll of her eyes from left to right.

“Really.  Unless you’re expecting-“  He gave her a sharp look.  “You’re not, right?”

She mouthed her negative with a slow shake of her head.

“Well.  That’s good then.”  He pursed his lips and continued to look at the items on the tray.  “Not that it would change my decision to want you back on board the TARDIS,” he babbled with obvious discomfort.  “I’m prepared to take on the responsibility of another man if it means I have you with me.  I’m sure the TARDIS would welcome a tiny passenger.”

“Doctor,” she called inside a moan.

“I understand the basic needs of the human race, Rose Tyler,” he continued.  “Their primal urge for copulation for physical release as much as procreation.  I wouldn’t be so arrogant and selfish as to expect you to have remained completely celibate for these past few years.”  He suddenly straightened and looked to her.  “Just tell me it wasn’t with Mickey.  Anyone but him.  Even that brute of a fellow in the cafeteria would be a preferable option.”

Rose exhaled a long breath.  “Doctor.  There hasn’t been anyone else.”

He smiled a tiny little smile.  “No?”

She shook her head.  “Not that there hasn’t been a line of suitors.”  She laughed at the small peep he made in response to that.  “Mostly though bets and competition,:” she clarified with a shrug.  “Who can get the ice-queen into bed kind of thing.”

“I want a full listing of participants,” the Doctor growled darkly.  “That is abhorrent behaviour.”

“And so typically human,” Rose added.  She put her hand on his shoulder.  “Don’t worry.  Me, Micks and Dad sorted that little problem out right smart, Doctor.”

He pouted his bottom lip out slightly as he moved to her urging to stand between her legs at the end of the bed.  “As your _mate_ it becomes my duty to defend your honour.”  He rolled his eyes in a rather petulant manner.  “Got more right than them.”

“More than my _dad_?” she queried as she slid her arms across his shoulders and linked her hands behind his head. 

He grinned widely at her and let his forearms lay across her thighs to rest his hands on her hips.  “Yep,”  He answered with a hard pop on his p.  “Under Gallifreyan cultural practices, me naming you as my mate immediately elevates my status above that of your father’s-“

“How about my mum?”

His eyes widened briefly and he lifted a hand from her leg to rub at the back of his neck.  Her hands in his way meant that he had to make do with a tug of his ear.  “Well.  I don’t know that anyone has the power to overrule your mother, Rose.”  He kept his eyes wide and pursed his lips as he considered Jackie’s reaction to any such suggestion.  “Don’t know that there’s any power or entity that could hold back Jackie Tyler.”

“Tell me about this _mating_ thing,” Rose blurted suddenly.

His brow lifted.  “Mating?”  He smiled cheekily.  “Didn’t your mother ever tell you about the birds and the bees, Rose?”

“Don’t play the daft git with me,” she answered with a laugh.  “I mean you calling me your mate.  What is all that about?”

He breathed out a sound of “ahh” and pulled back from her.  He reached to grab one a piece of equipment from a small table that had trundled itself into position beside him.  “It means that I’ve chosen you as my life partner, my beloved, my …”

“Girlfriend?”

He spluttered that word with no small amount of detest.  “Perhaps if we were ten years old in the playground at school.”  He lifted a swab to her lip.  “Now open up, I need a sample.”

She did as he asked and opened her mouth, humming and swinging her legs distractedly as he scraped the little cotton-ended stick against her cheek.  She found that she had to swipe her tongue across the inside of her cheek when he was done and then slapped her tongue off the roof of her mouth a couple of times.  “So not your girlfriend, then,” she managed after a moment.

“Not my girlfriend,” he repeated with distaste as he capped the swab and dropped it on the tray.

“So what am I, then?”

“I’d think you’d be rather familiar with the term,” he suggested as he pulled a syringe from the tray and held it up to the light a moment to examine the tube.  “Many species on your planet take mates.”  He shrugged and held out his hand to request her arm.  “The act of copulation is even called _mating_.”

Rose rolled up the sleeve of her button down.  “and shagging, banging, screwing, bumping uglies…”

“Bumping _what_?” he spluttered in shock.

“Uglies,” she repeated with a smirk.  “You’ve seen the human genitalia, yeah?”

He cleared his throat and reached for a tourniquet.  “I’m familiar with it, yes.”

“Nothing pretty about it,” she said with a peep as he tied the rubber tubing around her arm and tapped at the inside of her elbow.  “This is a little archaic, don’t you think, Doctor?  I mean, your kind being so advanced and superior, you’d think you’d have come up with a better way of drawing blood.”

“Yes, you’d think so, wouldn’t you,” he replied as he quickly stuck the needle into her arm and drew off the first of three vials he had lined up on his steel tray.  “As for the appearance of the _uglies_ ,” he continued calmly.  “You really have to take the time to appreciate it in all its splendour.  Its function, its delicacy, and how brilliantly complicated it is.”  He lifted his eyes to hers and smiled as he flawlessly changed to a new vial.  “I’d imagine you would be quite beautiful, Rose.”

She shuddered at the husk in his voice as he spoke and found herself reacting in the very same region they were discussing.  With a peep, she attempted to close her knees together, only to belatedly remember that he stood dead-centre of the part in her thighs. When he lifted a brow, looked at her closing knees, and chuckled, all she could do was swallow uncomfortably and look away.

“Anyway,” he sang in an attempt to flip the conversation back out of the water and onto comfortable land. “In naming you my mate, I’ve declared my intention to …”  he tipped his head to one side as he switched the last vial.  “Well.  In Earth terms, I’m declaring you my betrothed.”

Her breath hitched so hard that she didn’t even feel the extraction of the needle in her arm, nor the tender way he pressed a sterilized cotton ball against the tiny wound and lifter her hand to crease her elbow. 

“Doctor,” she pleaded inside a whisper.  “Does that mean that you and me, that we’re…”

“Engaged?” he finished on her behalf.  “Yes.  I suppose it does.”

He was mindful of her held breath, but tried not to pay obvious attention to it as he walked his samples toward a series of scanners at the side of the room.  He moved on automatic pilot as he set each sample into a different machine and set the scanners to run.

“Is that okay with you?” he asked without turning around.

“Yeah,” she peeped with a quiet whisper.  “More than okay.”

He turned then, rewarding her with a bright smile of thrill.  He didn’t move from the side of the room, however.  He remained leaned up against the countertop, arms folded loosely across his chest and his legs crossed at the ankle.

“Gallifreyans,” he began on a lecture with a light lean forward as he tried to find comfort in his stand.  “Are a strictly monogamous species.  They will find the one they believe to be their true mate –  or soul-mate, I suppose you could say – and bind themselves to that person for the rest of their lives.”  He swallowed and looked off to one side with head low, and brows high.  “Because my species is telepathic, the careful selection of the _mate_ best suited to any Gallifreyan was imperative.”  His eyes shifted to hers.  “Barring accidents, a Gallifreyan can live for thousands of years.  More if they’re designated Time Lord and have a regeneration package at their disposal.  Imagine binding yourself to a mate, only to discover a few years down the line that you don’t like the way they pick their nose, or that they eat in bed and leave crumbs, that they’re prone to flatulence…”

“You know you’re describing _yourself_ there, Doctor?”

He smiled at her amusement and pushed off the counter to approach her.  “How would you know that I eat in bed?” he challenged with a smirk.  “You’ve never been in my bedroom.”

“No, but you’ve been in mine,” she answered with a grin and her eyes locked on his as he approached.  “And you demolished an entire package of Jammie Dodgers then left me with all the crumbs.”

His brow creased as he tried to recall that moment.  Remembrance hit and he let out a little chuckle as he settled himself back between the part in her knees at the end of the gurney.  “Ahh.  But the only reason that I was in your room, in your bed, eating Jammie Dodgers, was because the reception on the telly in the rec room went on the fritz and yours was the only one that we could get any decent reception quality.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And you know that I snack when I’m watching the telly.”  He gave an indignant snort.  “Be thankful that all I brought with me _were_ Jammie Dodgers.  Typically I have popcorn, biscuits, chip…”

“How do you eat that much and still stay so skinny,” she queried suddenly.  She looked down at her midsection and subconsciously covered it with her arms.  “I even _think_ about food and I’m puttin’ on weight.”

He let his head cock to one side and regarded her with a smile.  “Didn’t I ever tell you that any calories you consume when on the TARDIS have no lasting effects at all?”

“Hold on, what?”

“It’s a complicated feature of space and time travel in a TARDIS, but in an effort for travelling Time Lords not to put on too much excess weight from all the wondrous culinary pleasures that exist out there in the universe, the TARDIS has a function that can alter your metabolism when onboard.”

“And you’re telling me this, _now_?” she groused.  “Not when you’ve routinely snacked on all the good stuff whenever we’re relaxing in the theatre room.” 

He shrugged.  “Just thought you didn’t like my snacks.”

“I’m of the mind, right now, to demand a full case of Jammie Dodgers and Red Velvet cake to scarf down and have absolutely zero remorse.”

He chuckled and ran his hands along her thighs to settle his grasp behind her back.  This allowed him to wriggle forward just that little bit closer to her.  “So.  To continue.  A Time Lord marriage is such that if the wrong partner is chosen, you’re in for a miserable existence.”

“So no divorce?”

“No,” he answered quickly.  “Not in a true coupling.”

“It’s a telepathic connection, then?”

He nodded.  “That it is.”  He lifted a hand to stroke his fingers along her temple and down her cheek.  “It’s a marriage in the purest of forms.  Till death do us part and all that.”

“And only the once, yeah?”

He hummed the affirmative to that question, not realising the sudden and light recoil inside of Rose.  “Only the once.  Not even death will sever the bond created in a Gallifreyan marriage.”

 

Rose swallowed and lowered her head.  “So I suppose that means that you and me-“

“Rose,” he warned lightly.  “Keep _her_ out of your mind.”

“But…”

“I’m not going to live my life based on her claim to be my future wife,” he snapped.  “And neither should you.”

“How can you be so sure of that, Doctor?”

He let out a huff and looked down to the mattress of the gurney.  He inhaled a slow breath that slowly drew his face back up to hers.  He swallowed thickly before responding, and did so on a careful, deliberate tone that allowed no misinterpretation or confusion at all.

“I know this,” he started slowly.  “Because I’m the one in control of my life from here.  Time Lord or no, my path is my choosing, and I refuse to allow a stranger who claims a place in that future to sway me otherwise.”

He cupped her face in his hands and held her head firm to endure she looked at nothing else but him.  “I’m in love.  Here and now.  And Rose Tyler, I’m not going to waste a single moment of it worrying about the ramifications my love for you is going to have a century, two centuries or even a millennium from now.  I care about now.  He took a moment to admire the glimmer in her eyes as he stroked his thumbs along her cheek bones.  “Rose.  I know how it is not to have you in my life.  It’s a pain so deep rooted that I can no longer feel anything at all.”  He puffed out a breath against her face.  She closed her eyes and parted her lips to breathe in the breath he’d exhaled and he found himself inhaling a sharp gasp at the intimacy of it.

Her name passed desperately through his lips as he suddenly drew her close to claim her mouth with his.  He sealed his lips across hers in a possessive claim that had very little finesse or tenderness.  His hips held in the small space between her thighs, his hands held upon her face, and his fingers stroked at the tender patches of skin either side of her head that would give him the most unhindered and intimate access to her mind…

…all he had to do was to knock gently at the door to her consciousness and he’d be inside her for the rest of their existence…

Rose pulled back suddenly with a gasp and a high-pitched moan.  She wriggled herself just slightly backward from his hips and panted lightly as she pressed her fingers to her lips.

The Doctor didn’t attempt to chase her.  He remained in between her knees at the end of the gurney.

“I told you back at the library,” he began of a soft whisper of a voice, “that I can read timelines.”  He tugged at his ear when she nodded her head, and continued as though he hadn’t paused to take a breath.  “Well.  I’m a Time Lord.  It’s who we are.  Masters of Time and her most humble servants.  She’s got to give us a tool or two or three to make sure we can answer to her whims and demands easily enough.”

“Yes, Doctor?”

“I also mentioned that I only make a habit of reading them when I’m particularly intrigued about someone.”  He looked into her face in search of an acknowledgement to his words.

Rose nodded. 

“I’ve never read yours,” he admitted with a scratch at the back of his head.  “Although I was intrigued by you from the moment I first met you, I never felt inclined to do so.”  He shrugged.  “Typically doesn’t end all that well when I do, you see.  It’s never fun to see just how your involvement in someone’s life will be their undoing.”

“You don’t unravel people’s lives,” she urged him vehemently.  “You make them better.  So much better.”

“Do I?” He asked hotly.  “Really?”

“You teach them how to live their lives a better way, Doctor.” She vowed fiercely.  She shuffled forward again to bring herself closer to him, hooking her legs around his hips to hold him firmly in place so what he wouldn’t try to escape.  “Like you did with me.  You made me so much more than I thought I could ever be.”

“You and your family are trapped here – in an alternate universe – because of me.”

“My mum has my dad,” she corrected.  “She has a new baby – Tony, my brother – and a life of luxury and love that she’d never have back home.”  She hooked her hands around the back of his head and drew her thumbs along his cheeks.  “She’s happy, Doctor.  Truly happy.  That’s because of you.  Mickey, oh, Mickey.  Doctor, look at how he’s grown because of you.  When you came into our lives he was a coward, a useless kid who drank beer and watched footy at the pub.  Now, look at him.  He’s defending the Earth.  Brave.  Brilliant.”

“He didn’t need me to be those things, Rose.  He always had it in him.”

Rose held her lips together and shook her head.  “No.  He needed you.  Like I need you.  Like the whole universe needs you.”

“Not the _whole_ universe,” he corrected quietly.  He lifted his hands to pull his face free of her hands and gently set them in her lap.  “River Song.  Now _there_ is a woman who would fare much better if I stay as far from her as possible.”

Rose fought against his hands trying to unhook her locked feet from around his hips.  She kept him firmly trapped between her thighs.  “So you looked at her timeline, then?”

He gave up his fight to free himself from the lock of Rose’s thighs and relaxed with his fists pressed into the mattress either side of her hips.  “I really had little choice in the matter,” he admitted with a shrug.  “Here was this strange woman walking about the place as if she knew my deepest and most dangerous secrets, whispering my academy nickname into my ear and sharing stories about the future Doctor and how he was so much more than I am.”

Rose nodded with eyes as wide as saucers.  “I can see why you’d feel compelled to take a sneaky peek.”

“ _A warrior_ , she accused me of being,” he huffed.  “Me, Rose Tyler, a warrior!  Can you even imagine?”

Rose chuckled against her fingers and shook her head.  “Well, you are a knight.”

“Armies that turn and run away,” he continued.  “And swagger?  Me?”  He then let out a displeased chuckle.  “Oh, and insulting my oldest and most trusted companion by snapping my fingers at her in a demand for her to open her doors?  Have you ever seen a TARDIS tantrum, Rose Tyler?”

Rose continued to laugh and shook her head.  “No.  And I reckon that’s a good thing, yeah?”

“Yes it is,” he confirmed.  “A TARDIS in tantrum mode would give your mum a run for her money.”

“That’s a scary thought.”

He shook his head.  “Not as terrifying as the thought of the man I’m supposed to become.”  He drew in a deep breath and held it a moment before he released it in a slow and controlled exhale.  “What she described I don’t want to become.”  He lifted a hand to thread his fingers through her hair.  “And with you by my side, I know that I won’t.”

“But what about fixed points, Doctor?  The Reapers?”  She lifted her arms in a dramatic fashion.  “The tearing of the fabric of time and space itself?”

The Doctor smiled at her question, and at the cheeky way she was asking.  It only worked to show that he was getting through to her.

“That’s the fascinating part of it,” he said with a smile.  “The only fixed points along her timeline are on the lines that intersect with mine.   There are paths and limbs and branches to her tree that are absolutely brilliant and have nothing to do with my timeline at all.”  He grinned.  “So don’t you see?  What she can be … without me … is someone brilliant.”

Rose tipped her head to one side in curiosity.  “So?  Can you see her future, I mean, what brought you and her together and how you supposedly got married and…”

“No,” he interrupted her quickly.  “It doesn’t work like that.”

“Oh.”

“That’s treading into soothsayer territory there, Rose,” he warned darkly.  “Not something I want to put my hands and mind anywhere near.”  He slid his arms around her hips once more and tugged her a little bit closer to him.  “Time sense allows me to look _along_ Timelines, Rose, but not _into_ them. I can see cause and effect and how the intersection of timelines can ultimately affect each party based upon the twists and turns the lines take from that moment onward.”  He shook his head.  “But I can’t see specific events – not unless there is reported and documented texts about the event – _then_ I get some insight into it.”

Rose lowered her head a little, but she kept her eyes on his.  “And with her – you don’t see anything?”

He shook his head.  “Not really.”  He scratched at his sideburn.  “Like I said there are some big events in space and time that surround her timeline, but by analysing the connecting timelines, most of it appears to be at her hand.”

“Her fault, you mean?”

He nodded.  “Like you saving your dad.”  He peppered out an _uh-uh-uh_ sound though an open mouth when she moaned apologetically.  “Not a big deal, _really_.  If the Reapers are out then there is a wound that needs to be and more importantly _can_ be dressed and healed without something monumental happening.”

“Him dyin’ again was pretty monumental, Doctor.”

“To you, yes it was,” he acquiesced with a nod.  “To the universe – not so much.”

“Lovely.”

“Not to be flippant, Rose, but time and the universe doesn’t really  don’t care much about how you feel about things.”

Rose let out a moan and flipped backward onto the gurney.  The motion unlocked her ankles from his backside and opened herself further to him.

…It took quite a bit of effort for him not to react to that.

“Anyway,” he managed with a squeak that was effectively suppressed with a clearing of his throat.  “A time leak.  _That’s_ when the fabric of reality is about to tear.  Any Time Lord worth his salt knows never to mess with those moments in time.”  He curled his hands around each of her thighs.  “There is no excuse, no justification at all, for anyone to tamper with those events.”

Rose remained lying on her back and looked up at him with curious eyes.  “But you saw that in her timeline?”

He nodded shortly.  “I think so.  I can’t be sure, of course, but it all seems to lead that way.”  He looked down at Rose laying beneath him and let out a stuttering breath.  “By Rassilon Rose.  Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?”

“Don’t change the subject,” she challenged with a laugh.

He rolled his eyes.  “I kept seeing the way my timeline would abruptly shoot off in her direction, and then the disaster and lives lost that got caught up in that connection.”  He shook his head.  “Rose.  I don’t want that.  I don’t want to be the man she says I’m supposed to be.”  He looked down at her again.  “I want to be who I am now.  Who I am when I’m with you.”

Rose answered him with a smile and lifted her hand to run her fingers up his arms.

“I like that me,” he continued.  “The Doctor who’s with Rose Tyler.  The Time Lord who loved the travel, loves the adventure, lvoes life,  who just _loves_.”  He leaned forward and pressed his hands into the mattress either side of her shoulders.  “Six or Seven decades or as many centuries.  Rose, I don’t care.  I need you.  Come with me.”

Rose reached up to grasp at the knot of his tie.  With a sharp tug she pulled his face down to hers.  “I’ll follow you, come with you, come _for_ you, Doctor.”

“Then you’ll give me your forever,” he asked huskily.

“So long as you give me yours,” she answered with equal husk in her voice.

“It’s yours,” he vowed passionately against her throat as he pulled one of her knees up over his hip to press himself firmly against her.  The sound he elicited from the very back of her throat in response sent a shot of thrill and self-congratulations from tip to toe.  He snarled a predacious sound of possession as he latched his lips against her throat and suckled deeply at her skin.

There was a sound of a feminine clearing of a throat from the doorway that froze the Doctor in place atop Rose Tyler.  He thought her name with a groan of annoyance at the interruption, but didn’t dare say it while he was in this very awkward predicament.

“Well.  Not that I want to interrupt this happy little reunion you’ve got going on here, Spaceman.”

Rose curled around the stilled Time Lord and grinned toward Donna.  “Oh.  Hi!  Sorry.  The Doctor and I, we were, uh…”

“Getting randy,” Donna muttered with obvious amusement.  “Can’t say I blame ya.  It’s been a while and this skinny freak has missed you.”

The Doctor huffed – more in embarrassment than anything else, but he was ready and willing to run with the anger angle.  “Is there a reason you decided to barge in on a rather important examination?”

“Examination,” Donna murmured slowly.  “Is that what you call it on Gallifrey, then?  An _examination_?  Gonna pop off with the girlfriend for a little bit of an examination?  If the TARDIS is rockin’ then don’t come knockin’?”

Rose couldn’t help but break into laughter.

The Doctor merely covered his eyes in one hand and let out a moan against Rose’s chest as he hell into a defeated slump.  “Rassilon help me.”

“I reckon Rassilon’s probably having a bit of a laugh at your expense,” Rose offered with amusement as she worked her way out from underneath him to be able to sit up and then swing her legs over the edge of the gurney. 

The Doctor buried his face into the mattress.  “I bet he is.  Lousy bastard Time Lord that he is.”

The scanners at the wall beeped a synchronized series of computer bleeps and chimes.  The sound had the Doctor immediately straighten up to a stand.  His suddenly focused and determined expression belying the embarrassed posture of only a second ago.

“Looks like the tests are complete, Rose Tyler,” he said with a waggle in his brow and a curl in his tongue.  “Let’s see if your Torchwood medics know what they’re talking about, shall we?”


	14. Allons-y

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose, Donna and the Doctor. What more could you ask for?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry that this was left in such an abandoned state. I honestly thought I'd finished this one. I bounced across all ready to write my next fic - something in the Gal'Verse (oh ... not using that one again) - and discovered that this was actually incomplete.
> 
> I. Well. I am not terribly happy with this, but it does have to end in order for me to continue. I also have rusty fingers and brain from not writing for a few weeks, so it's nowhere near my finest submission. In time I will rip this one apart and fix it up. 
> 
> I honestly didn't know how to properly finish this one ... All I really wanted was to play about with the three of them, a bit ... sigh. Sorry if it's anticlimactic. I'll run with the Moffat curse on this one - Start off out the gate running, and fall apart at the end! HA!
> 
> Thanks for reading ... it's appreciated.

_The scanners at the wall beeped a synchronized series of computer bleeps and chimes.  The sound had the Doctor immediately straighten up to a stand.  His suddenly focused and determined expression belying the embarrassed posture of only a second ago._

_“Looks like the tests are complete, Rose Tyler,” he said with a waggle in his brow and a curl in his tongue.  “Let’s see if your Torchwood medics know what they’re talking about, shall we?”_

Rose let her eyes flick up as Donna approached the gurney.  Without thinking about it, she shuffled to one side and petted the mattress in a silent invitation for the fiery redhead to take a seat next to her.

“Don’t mind if I do,” Donna chipped with a wide smile as she turned her back to the gurney and used the pull of her arms to haul herself up onto the bed beside Rose.  She let out a long groan as she strained for lift.  “I’m getting’ old.”

The Doctor let out a sharp and singular laugh at that from across the room.

Donna moaned a sound of annoyance when the Doctor followed up his laugh by citing his own age in comparison to hers. “By _Human_ standards, Spaceman,” she hollered in response followed by a roll of her eyes.  “I’m fast approaching middle-age.”

“For _your_ time period, perhaps,” he mumbled in response as he analysed the data on both the monitor and printouts.  “Give it a few centuries and the life expectancy of humans increases exponentially.”  He glanced at the papers in his hand and sniffed.  “By _their_ standards in comparison to yours, you’re in your mid-teens.”

“Which isn’t an age I ever want to revisit,” Rose said with a moan and a roll in her eyes.

Donna lifted a brow and looked her over with a critical eye.  “You’re only a week out of it, aren’t you?”

Rose answered with little more than a facetious:  “Oh.  Ha.  Ha.”

“Now.  Dumbo over there,” Donna continued with a slide of her eyes toward the Doctor.  ”Is, what, a _toddler_ by his people’s standards.”

“Teenager,” the Doctor corrected distractedly.  He then blinked his eyes slowly closed and lifted his head to the ceiling in consideration of the correction.  In short time he opened his eyes again and lowered his gaze to the monitor.  “Well.  Then again.  I’m in my tenth incarnation, so that would put me closer to the other side of middle-aged.”  He looked back down at the papers in his hand and shrugged.  “Age-wise, however.  Teenager.  Definitely a teen.”

“It’d be nice if I could disagree with that.”  She looked to Rose with a waggle in her brow.  “The Doctor: Teenaged hellion flitting across the universe, one emo mood swing at a time.”

“And not a single pimple,” Rose remarked jealously.

“Well no,” Donna agreed.  “At least not on his face.”  She raked her eyes up and down the pinstriped form across the room and huffed out a breath.  “Who knows about the rest of him?  Always covered up in fifty layers of clothing.  Can’t get a look-in on the body of a Time Lord to even tell.”

“Are you suggesting you want to see me in all my Time Lord glory, Donna?” he queried carefully as he turned from the monitor and leaned back up against the counter.

“Hold on, _what_?”

“Well,” he drawled with a wince on one side of his face as he folded his arms across his chest and crossed his legs at the ankle.  “You were going on about me being fully covered at all times as though it’s a disappointment.”

Donna’s eyes shot wide, but her brows tightened together in a grimace.  “Oh.  I think we are in the midst of a serious misunderstanding here.”

The absolute disgust in her voice gave the Doctor smile.  Oh, he was going to run with this.  “But you seemed so curious,” he remarked gently as he flicked the bottom button of his blazer and gave her a wink.  “About what I’m hiding here underneath my suit.”

Donna’s eyes shot wide.  “Oh.  Don’t you _dare_.”

“…and it would be very remiss of me,” he continued as he popped through another button and shifted as though to let the blazer fall from his shoulders.  “To not…”

“No!” Donna cried urgently.  She lifted her forearm to cover both her eyes.  “For the love of every deity across the entire universe, _don’t_ show me any part of your skinny self.”

“But…”

“But _nothing_ , you bloody plonker,” she growled.  “For all I know you probably glow or something under that suit, and I don’t want to be blinded.”

“He doesn’t _glow_ ,” Rose offered with amusement.  She then licked a heavy and lazy stroke of her tongue through the space in between her teeth and lips.  She released her tongue with a slap.  “Okay.  Not really.  Not unless you count the glow of _really_ white pasty skin that’s never seen sunlight.”

Donna pursed her lips and lowered her voice in a rather conspiratorial manner.  “That bad, huh?”

“It’s like staring at the sun,” Rose answered back with a smirk and wink toward the Doctor. She waved her hand in front of her eyes.  “I’m sure I did permanent retinal damage.”

Donna nodded knowingly.  “I could believe it.”

“Yeah?”

“Well yeah.  Look at him.”  She gestured toward the Doctor, who may have slumped in defeat, but was obviously amused.  “Skinny little alien streak of absolutely nothing.  What could you even see in that?”

“Oh,” Rose sang with a smile.  “I dunno.”

“If you tell me it’s because he has a great sense of humour, or that it’s because he’s got brains or something like that…”

The Doctor chuckled low.  “Are you saying you think I’m smart _and_ funny, then, Donna?”

Her smile brightened.  “Of course I am.”

“Why thank you.  I’m very…”

“Smart arse and funny looking,” she concluded cheekily.

The Doctor merely rolled his eyes in response and shook his head.  “Anyway.  Moving on…”

“Which is something you’ve never done.”  She looked to Rose with urging in her eyes.  “Which is precisely why you need to set aside your concerns about this River woman and come back to travelling with us on the TARDIS.”  She thumbed toward the Doctor.  “He pines for you, ya know.  Pines and cries and…”

“I do not _cry_ , thank you,” he shot in with a derisive snort.  “Time Lords don’t cry.”

“The moment I met you you had a tear-streaked face,” Donna countered swiftly. 

“I’d just said _goodbye_ to her,” the Doctor countered sadly.  “I may have suffered a slight lapse in my otherwise immaculate hold on my emotions…”

“And then you didn’t stop talking about her, did you?  _Her name was Rose_ ,” she recited with a break in her voice.  “My friend.  She’s gone.  I lost her.”  She gave him a look of warning.  “And don’t let me get into the whole draining of the Thames and you standing under the rush of water like you were ready to go thing.”

Donna paused to let the Doctor comment, and then let out a sigh when all he did was swallow thickly.  She looked back to Rose.  “His hearts were shattered.”  She inhaled a deep breath and released it shortly.  “Still are to some degree.  If you let him leave you now, there’ll be nothing left of him to take over to the other side of the wall.”

Rose sniffed.  Her voice was barely a whisper.  “This is emotional blackmail.”

“Okay then,” Donna said softly.  “Then how about you?  How much of _you_ will be left if you let him leave you here?”

Rose’s eyes were fixed on the man that stood less than ten feet away from her in a slouch both despondent and defeated at the possibility presented.  When she answered, it was on a voice so quiet it was barely audible.  She held out her hand to him.  “There’s been nothing left of me since he said goodbye to me on Bad Wolf Bay.”

The Doctor immediately rocketed himself forward to take her hand in his and press her palm in between his two hearts.  His eyes reddened with remembrance of his own as he lifted his hand to cup her cheek.  “No more Goodbyes,” he sighed sadly.  “Please, Rose.  I’m so tired of always having to say goodbye.”

“Well in that case…”  Rose laughed softly, despite the tear that spilled out over her cheek and then his thumb.  “Hello.”

“Hi,” he answered back with an equal break in his voice to hers. 

She leaned into his hand and looked into his eyes with longing.  Slowly, her lips stretched into a smile.  “How would you fancy having a repeat passenger on board the old girl?”

He stroked his thumb along her cheek and nodded a light bob of his head.  “I’d love it.”

“Me too,” she said with her face brightening.

“So?”  He took a hopeful breath.  “So you’ll come back with me, then?”

“Yeah,” she breathed hoarsely.  “I’ll come.”

He moved quickly to thrust his arms forward to circle around her hips.  He snatched her off the table and up against his chest, spinning a single twirl in place.  Rose had her head thrown backward and her face fractured with a smile of thrill that released a squealing sound of joy that perfectly accented the happy giggle sound that was dancing in the back of the Doctor’s throat.

Donna leaned backward onto her arms and looked upon the two of them with a misty eyes and a gentle smile.  “Good for you, my skinny alien-boy,” she sang softly.  “It’s about time the universe gave you something back.  God only knows you’ve spent your entire existence giving everything to keeping _her_ safe.”

“Don’t jinx it, Donna,” he warned gently as he let Rose’s feet touch and then find purchase on the ground. 

Donna rolled her eyes as she leaned forward and allowed herself to slide off the gurney.  “The Universe isn’t going to explode because you’ve found yourself a little happiness.”

He rubbed at the back of his neck with one hand, and clutched tightly at Rose’s hand with the other.  “There are days it feels like it wants to do just that.”

Rose stepped away from him to head toward the counter, where the monitor still showed her test results.  She look coyly down her shoulder at him as she pulled at his hand for release.  “Well, perhaps we should fight the will of the universe together.”

He grinned as he let their hands part and watched as she moved to the monitor.  “Looks like you’re already doing a very good job of that all by yourself.”

Rose let out a short laugh at that.  “Oh, I don’t think I did it all on my own,” she petted the wall behind the monitor.  “I think I may have had a little help with that.”

“Ahh yes,” he managed breathily through an open mouth.  “Interference by TARDIS.”  He looked to the ceiling.  “I’m not sure whether to thank you or be mad at you for that, old girl.”  He let out a light huff.  “Playing about with vortex energies and genetic matrices is very naughty indeed.”  He pressed his lips together and scrunched up his nose, ignoring the wide-eyed look from Rose.  “It goes against all the laws of time and nature, you know.”

Rose lightly cleared her throat.  ”You don’t sound happy that I’m…”

He quickly held up his hand.  “I didn’t say that,” he assured her.  “I’m quite thrilled, I’ll have you know, that we’ll be able to share a forever that is far more compatible than it was before my TARDIS applied her own special brand of jiggery pokery on you…”

“Can I interrupt to point out how very wrong that sounded,” Donna offered with a grin.

The Doctor’s face darkened slightly.  “As I was saying…”

“Donna’s right,” Rose agreed with a wide grin as she skipped along the floor to stand at Donna’s side.  “I get that it probably sounded way better in your head, but – and not that I’m saying there’s anything wrong with that kind of thing – but TARDISes _jiggery poking_ her passengers does sound like rather inappropriate behaviour.”

“That’s because it is,” he shot back incredulously.  “This old girl should not be poking about and tinkering with my companions.”

Both girls spit out laughter that could only be described as two young teenagers giggling over a rude joke.

The Doctor winced in confusion.  “What?”

Rose and Donna seemed to calm.  They then looked toward each other and immediately burst into another fit of laughter, which further confused the Doctor who could only splutter another one four-letter word question.

He looked horribly confused and perhaps even slightly put out by their amusement.  “All I said was that the TARDIS shouldn’t be mucking about and tinkering with-“ he cut himself off abruptly when the laughter two giggle-pusses wailed even louder.  “Really?  This again, Rose?”

“I’m sorry,” she spluttered with a real honest attempt to stop herself. 

“Oh, I’m not,” Donna cut in with a sniff.  “And you best be telling your interfering tinkering ship that she best not be doing any of that jiggery poking thing with…”  she paused as Rose snorted an exhale through her nose in an attempt to stop the laughter from escaping.  “Oh hell.”

The hammer fell, and so did the expression on the Doctor’s face.  His cadence was in a state of forced neutrality, which indicated to all that he was a shade off completely annoyed with the both of them.  The flatness in his tone didn’t change that opinion.

“Humans,” he muttered dryly as he walked to the counter and snatched off his small pile of papers.  He made a show of putting them together and tapping them on the counter to straighten out the pages.  “It always comes down to one thing with you lot, doesn’t it?”  He huffed.  “Never mind that it is an essential biological imperative for yours and any species that practice sexual reproduction.”  He then spun and stabbed a finger in the air to point at them both.  “Or the sheer, ethereal beauty of the act in being able to flawlessly express love between two people.  Oh.   Ohhhhhh, but you humans have to make fun and jokes out of it.  Don’t you?”

That silenced both women immediately.  They looked upon the aggrieved Time Lord with wide eyes and guilty expressions.

“Love,” he continued along a growl of annoyance.  “And the making of it is not a subject to be scoffed at and mocked.”  He snapped a look at them – hard and steeled.  “And while it would be very easy of me to simply laugh off and accept the notion that humankind doesn’t express love and devotion toward each other by sexual means; I have to point to the fact that it is reverently written about in the greatest tales told throughout the history of this planet.” 

“Did those classic tales also indicate that that action is also used for a quick and messy shag that is oftentimes so clumsy it _has to_ be laughed at,” Donna ventured warily.  “Or that it’s often written in such an airy-fairy manner that the only _imperative_ is to actually snicker at it like an embarrassed pre-teen because if you don’t you’ll probably throw up and never shag again?”

“I don’t know that he’s ever read Mills & Boon, Donna,” Rose interrupted after a swallow as she climbed up onto the mattress beside Donna.  “The Doctor’s more of a Shakespeare kind’ve guy.”

“Oh,” Donna moaned loudly with discovery.  “And _that’s_ so much better….”

Rose turned to face Donna fully.  She sat with her legs folded together and looked to Donna with bright eyes and an excited and slightly hunched seat.  “Have you _ever_ read a Shakespearean love scene?”

Donna leaned forward in a mirror of Rose’s position.  “Once or twice. Back sat school where it was forced on us.”

“ _Forced_ is about accurate,” Rose groused.  She then tilted her head to one side in a fascinated and curious manner.  “Do you reckon they actually spoke like that back then?”

Donna shrugged.  “If it was written, then, yeah.  I’d say so.”  She folded her arms across her chest and slouched to one side as a crease of consideration furrowed her brow.  “Writing styles do tend to reflect the language of the times.”

Rose’s eyes widened.  “Then do you reckon the blokes used those wordy lines back in those days to pick up women?”  Her eyes flicked to Donna.  “And do you think it actually worked?”

“We should find out,” Donna replied with wide and eager eyes that sifted quickly toward the Doctor.  “I say next stop, London, late sixteenth century.  What’ya think?”

He screwed up his nose before he dared answer that question.  His mind replayed the memories of his last visit to that time period; of witches and death and threats to cut off his head.  “Been there.  Quite recently in fact.”  He shook his head and scratched at his sideburn in obvious discomfort.  “Not real keen in heading back there anytime soon, ta.”

Rose had to laugh.  “Which means you managed to upset someone.  So.  Who did you tick off, then?”

The Doctor cleared his throat and tugged on his ear.  “Well.  If the order to cut off my head was any indication, then it was quite possibly the Queen, herself.  Her _mortal enemy_ , she called me.”  His discomfort shifted to curious contemplation.  “And the fact that I don’t ever recall having met good old Queen Bess means that it was a slight caused by a future incarnation of myself.”  He couldn’t help but grin and waggle his brows at the two women.  “I’m almost tempted to head back and ask around.  What’dya say?  Want to head back in time and see what we did to upset the old girl?”

Donna stared at the Doctor with pinched eyes.  “How have you determined that it was more than just _you_ who upset her?  How did me and Rose get pulled into it?”

His smile was genuine.  “Because,” he began gently.  “The two of you are going to be with me _forever_ , and if the future me is the one who upset her, then the two of you have to be involved in some way.” 

“He’s got a point,” Rose offered with a look to Donna.

Donna wasn’t quite focussed on that.  Instead she lifted her chin and looked down her nose at the papers that the Doctor had discarded on the counter.  “You said we were going to be with you _forever_.  The two of us.  Me and Rose.”

“I did.”  The Doctor nodded slowly and then angled his head to one side in question.  “You’re not planning to leave me, are you?”

She looked aghast at the suggestion.  “Why would you think that?”

“Well,” he answered thickly.  “With Rose being back with us and all.  I hope that you don’t feel like you’re intruding or any such rubbish.”

Donna released a sharp laugh.  “Me?  Intruding?”

“Well a polite individual may….”

“And we both well know that _Donna Noble_ and _Polite_ don’t belong in the same paragraph,” she shot back with a wink and a smile.  “Not even the same novel.  Opposite ends of the library even.”

Rose had to laugh.  “Rude _and_ ginger!  Oh, Doctor, you must fume with jealousy over that.”

He gave an indignant sniff and shrugged as his hands found their way into his trouser pockets.  “Nope.  Time Lords don’t get jealous.”

“Gee,” Rose murmured.  “Do Time Lords have _any_ feelings?”

“You know we do,” he answered softly.  “Well.  At least _this one_ does.”

“Yeah?”

He nodded and rubbed at the back of his neck.  “Blimey.  This is what happens when you spend too much time hanging about with you humans.  You’ve made me all soft and human-y.”

“More _Human_ than _Human_ , you are.” Donna said with a soft smile.  She looked toward the Doctor, who looked uncharacteristically shy with his admission.  With a huff and a smile she held her hand out to him.  “Oh come here you big Dumbo.” 

Her eyes flicked to Rose.  “You too, Rose.  We’re calling in a group hug right now.”

That offer made Rose chuckle and shake her head.  She wriggled her fingers toward the Doctor and tipped her ear toward Donna.  “Well come on, then, Doctor.  Let’s all cuddle.”

“Rather not, ta,” he quipped indignantly.  He circled his finger in the air in a gesture toward Donna.  “I know her better than you do, Rose.  She’s up to no good, that one.”

“How is a _hug_ being up to no good?”

“I’m not quite sure,” he answered cautiously, his eyes pinched with suspicion.  “Which is what worries me.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“No,” he argued firmly.  “I’m clever.  Very clever.”  He squeaked slightly when he was approached at either side by both women and found himself the meat in their sandwich, but quickly relaxed against them both.  He pressed his lips against Donna’s head and exhaled a breath of appreciation against her hair.  “Thank you, Donna.”

“For what?” she asked him quietly.

“For being my common sense,” he admitted as his arm tightened around Rose and he tugged her closer to his side.  He blinked thankfully toward his best friend.  “For showing me how to make it back home.”

She peeled away from him.  “You always knew how to get there,” she replied with a shrug.  “I just gave you the push you needed to take that first step toward it.”

The Doctor looked down into Rose’s beaming face and exhaled reverently as he traced the very tip of his finger along the bridge of her nose and down over her pursed lips.  “Time for _next_ steps, then.  And considering we have a very long forever ahead of us, Rose Tyler, we’ve got all the steps in the world to take together, yeah?”

“That you do,” Donna breathed softly.  She quickly cleared her throat and shook herself.  “So don’t go cocking it up, Spaceman!”  She paused to chuckle.  “Then again….”

The Doctor slumped, moaned and dropped his arms.  Rose broke into laughter.

“Really,” he barked.  “Donna, does your _mother_ know you think like this?”

“Do you want to ask her?”

The Doctor’s eyes widened with the thought.  He winced as though in pain and shook his head.  “By Rassilon no.”  He shuddered and motioned a couple of retches, then shook himself free of the thought. 

“So,” Rose queried in an attempt to change the subject.  “Where to, then?”

The Doctor’s eyes immediately brightened and a wide grin broke across his face.  He clapped his hands together and then wrung them together.  “Where to?  Good question, Rose Tyler.  Always with the clever questions, you.”

“Shame the answers aren’t as clever,” Donna groused playfully.

The Doctor pointed in Donna’s direction and snapped his fingers.  “I think we just might take our Donna Noble up on her earlier suggestion of finding out just which chat up lines the men of the late seventeenth century use to pick up women.”

“And while we’re at it, look into just why Queen Bess is hating on you right now?” Rose ventured playfully.

“Oh,” he crooned as he walked toward Donna and squeezed her in a side-hug.  “There you are.  What did I tell you?  Look at my Rose Tyler being all brilliant again.”

Donna rolled her eyes.  “Hardly brilliant deducing,” she muttered dryly.  “You’d already expressed your desire to find out…”

“You want to find out just as much as I do,” he purred cheekily.  “Admit it.”

“Because running away from the queen’s archers is my idea of a thrilling adventure.” She groused in a very insincere manner.

“You know it is,” he cheered.  “Well come on, my girls of TARDIS.  Let’s go find some trouble in Elizabethan England.  Allons-y!”

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who or any of the characters (If I did, there would be no River Song at all) ...


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